Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

USPS fail. Nothing new. As usual. Why expect anything less from them? And why give a delivery date if they are always late?

This is the adapter board for the C5 replacement in the 3456A. Mouser should be shipping the capacitors today for delivery tomorrow via UPS. Wanna place bets that the adapter doesn't show up tomorrow?   

[med6753]

To go with the new toy I think one good probe is in order. Anyone know this seller (besttestus)? Also what is the % chance of them being the real deal? eBay auction: #224159519411 Seems the rest of the gear leans toward them being genuine 

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

[beanflying]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

[med6753]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

I don't NEED a 500MHz scope either. But it just so happens that I have one sitting around. 

[Specmaster]

I wonder what the shipping for that Oz would be  more than likely cost not one arm and a leg, but both
arms and a leg 

[beanflying]

I don't NEED a 500MHz scope either. But it just so happens that I have one sitting around. 

Seems to have grown an ugly boil on its case I recommend a quick lancing and disinfection

[med6753]

Hey, stop making fun of the 7260A. It looks a hell of a lot better after painting it from that yucko beige to blue. 

[tggzzz]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

Why not make several Z0 resistive divider probes? They will be cheaper and even a 10:1/500ohm probe will be much less loading on the circuit

[Kosmic]

To go with the new toy I think one good probe is in order. Anyone know this seller (besttestus)? Also what is the % chance of them being the real deal? eBay auction: #224159519411 Seems the rest of the gear leans toward them being genuine 

I bought from besttestus before. All went well. Shipping is normally a bit expensive.

You could have a better deal for a 500Mhz probe though. saw a Lecroy pp008 yesterday on ebay, 500Mhz with accessories for 25$. Also to give you an idea, I got 2 x lecroy pp005 (500Mhz) for 39$ each couples of months ago.

[med6753]

Looking ahead to my next project. I know where there is one of these for sale for only $50 USD. It's a local CL seller who I have bought from before. He's a ham but disabled and not as active as he once was......and at least doesn't look or smell like a hobo. 

Tek 321. First almost all transistor scope. But it uses troublesome Germanium transistors. But yea, in most cases sillycon can be substituted. The one he has for sale is shown powered up but a huge blob on the screen so it definitely has issues.

I think next week I'm gonna pay him a visit. About an hour away.

   

[mnementh]

Well I've been searching around on evil bay for something to catch my eye and failed, well not failed exactly, found plenty but already way to rich for my liking. I like something bargain-basement that I can add value to and then either retain and use, or flip it again to fund further restoration of gear. Suddenly my eyes fell upon a mobile phone, not just any old phone, although I expect many of you will tell me otherwise  , but a Windows 10 phone, a Lumia 950 with 32GB memory and a glorious 20MP camera in Black and boxed complete with charger etc, all working and fully unlocked. I used to have one of these as a company phone and I really liked it, infact out of the phones I've had, I'd say that was the best, or was it just rose-coloured glasses leading me astray.

Anyway, I have been watching these on and off for a while now and they normally (in my price bracket) go for around £33+ unboxed, with some marks on the case, no lead or charger so I thought I'd bid early with my maximum bid of just over the going rate and forgot about it, just checked and I won it and with the P&P on it comes a tad over the normal going price, so fingers crossed its alright and of course these also make good mini Win 10 tablets running most things that my desktop runs 

Okay... I'll bite. Can you compare the 950 against the 520/521? Does it have the same "It just works!" feel?

I simply cannot quantify how much of a disappointment the 621 (I think) was after years with the 521.

To put it in perspective... I just now figured out, after easily 3 or 4 attempts, how to enable mass storage mode on my current Android10 phone so it works every time, and I've had it since before Halloween.

All the common stuff that everybody wants to do with a phone is in a different place (or randomly just vaporises) with every fucking iteration. It's like Whack-a-Mole on your brain cells...


mnem

[Cerebus]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

Why not make several Z0 resistive divider probes? They will be cheaper and even a 10:1/500ohm probe will be much less loading on the circuit

Worth watching out for are the Aglient 1163A probes which are a 500\$\Omega\$ \$Z_0\$ probe in conventional probe form, with all the usual accessories - hook tip, pogo tip, a couple of pin grabbers and so on. Agilent had them down as good to >1.5GHz. About three years back I picked one up, in indistinguishable from new condition, off eBay at a Jammy Git price (I think it was £25) and I've seen them several times since at good prices.

When they were available from Agilent (discontinued) they were around the £350 a piece price if you bought them separately rather than bundled with a fast scope. A bit much for a fancy \$Z_0\$ probe IMO.

[SilverSolder]

[...] All the common stuff that everybody wants to do with a phone is in a different place (or randomly just vaporises) with every fucking iteration. It's like Whack-a-Mole on your brain cells... [...]

This is what I hate the most about the direction technology and software has gone.

Only Microsoft has succeeded in keeping some products (e.g. Office and perhaps even Win 10) "relatively stable" after a few detours,  and that was only because users screamed so loudly at Microsoft every time they tried to make a hare-brained change that they, eventually, and reluctantly, got the message: "Don't f*ck with a product that works well and does what we need!".

Who has time to re-learn driving a car just because a car maker randomly decides to swap the position of the brake and clutch pedal?  -  The car industry "gets" the "don't mess with things that work" principle much more than the software industry...

[Cerebus]

Apple, who some people seem to think just exists for them to detract from, haven't done that. True, they've busted their own original human interface guidelines a few times, but in the period that I've been using a Mac as my daily driver since 2005 they haven't done that "let's move everything for the hell of it" thing once.

Every time there has been a major upgrade almost of OS X/macOS everything has remained in the same place or can be easily and obviously found. In that period, 2005 - now, I've personally gone from OS X 10.4 to macOS 10.15, 12 versions, 11 major upgrades, and no trauma. Whereas in the same period the MS world has gone from XP to Windows 10, through Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, and every time there's been an "upgrade" there have been cries from my fellow workers of "Where's X done?", "Why can't I just Y, like I did in <the last version of Windows>", and from me when I've had to use Windows out of professional necessity.

[SilverSolder]

I worked around the Microsoft spasm by sticking with Windows 7...  and now Windows 10 looks pretty much like an upgrade to Windows 7 with a few added bells and whistles, which is what Microsoft should have done in the first place.  MS is lucky that there is so much inertia in the marketplace that they seem to have gotten away with several disastrous decisions...


Macs have always had a nice and intuitive user interface.  I've used them since the 80's, LOL.   I do have a Macbook Pro, but I rarely use it - prefer to use the 'big rig' desktop setup.

[mnementh]

   Having a coffeebreak in the shack so I fired up the 6632B to max current and voltage (20V/5A) and fitted the heavy gauge leads to the cheap and cheerful Electronic load for 15 minutes. Max Temp as indicated 54C and the underside of the board was only just 'warm'. Measurements across the range when checked in the past are fairly close to the DUT with the heavy leads but I might look at the board and see if I can add four wire measurement to it without to much hacking and chopping.

I see readings on this panel that suggest firmware is designed to be able to do load-testing on Li-xx, etc cells and packs. Does this one have capability to automatically cut off at a settable minimum discharge voltage?

While it seems like that should be a "minimum requirement" given the other battery characterization features on the thing... I've just recently been reminded to never take anything for granted on any of this kind of gadget with that calc kit that has only 7-digit registers.

mnem
 

[AVGresponding]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

I do wonder what the performance of the scope will be like up at 500MHz, given the sample rate is 500MS/s...

[tggzzz]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

Why not make several Z0 resistive divider probes? They will be cheaper and even a 10:1/500ohm probe will be much less loading on the circuit

Worth watching out for are the Aglient 1163A probes which are a 500\$\Omega\$ \$Z_0\$ probe in conventional probe form, with all the usual accessories - hook tip, pogo tip, a couple of pin grabbers and so on. Agilent had them down as good to >1.5GHz. About three years back I picked one up, in indistinguishable from new condition, off eBay at a Jammy Git price (I think it was £25) and I've seen them several times since at good prices.

When they were available from Agilent (discontinued) they were around the £350 a piece price if you bought them separately rather than bundled with a fast scope. A bit much for a fancy \$Z_0\$ probe IMO.

I have three of the earlier HP10020 probes. Delightful.

[med6753]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

I do wonder what the performance of the scope will be like up at 500MHz, given the sample rate is 500MS/s...

Not a concern here. We be all analog Baby! 

[tggzzz]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

I do wonder what the performance of the scope will be like up at 500MHz, given the sample rate is 500MS/s...

I have a 4GHz 75kS/s scope. The first boat anchor digitising scope I used in the late 80s was 1GHz, 25MS/s.

[med6753]

I have three of the earlier HP10020 probes. Delightful.

How do they interface to 485 50 ohm input? Buttery smooth? 

[bd139]

Apple, who some people seem to think just exists for them to detract from, haven't done that. True, they've busted their own original human interface guidelines a few times, but in the period that I've been using a Mac as my daily driver since 2005 they haven't done that "let's move everything for the hell of it" thing once.

Every time there has been a major upgrade almost of OS X/macOS everything has remained in the same place or can be easily and obviously found. In that period, 2005 - now, I've personally gone from OS X 10.4 to macOS 10.15, 12 versions, 11 major upgrades, and no trauma. Whereas in the same period the MS world has gone from XP to Windows 10, through Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, and every time there's been an "upgrade" there have been cries from my fellow workers of "Where's X done?", "Why can't I just Y, like I did in <the last version of Windows>", and from me when I've had to use Windows out of professional necessity.

This. You just get to various things working with the mac which never did on windows properly. Killer features for me:

1. The M1 variety of macs are quite frankly ridiculously fast even though I have the absolute bottom end unit and the UI is so low latency it's weird using it. When you go back to windows unwillingly it's like wading in shite doing simple tasks. Also they run ICE COLD and quite happily chunk through work like top end workstation speeds. I am quite frankly shocked at a first gen CPU product that is this good. It's absolutely batshit insane and was dirt cheap. The whole machine cost less than a Ryzen 5950X and has better transcode performance and about the same single thread perf.
2. Backups. Just plug the backup disk in and it does a backup. No futzing, no third party software. I run two: one onto an external SSD and one onto an external USB stick. The latter is encrypted and carried on my person.
3. iOS integration. It's completely seamless moving back and forth between it and iOS. In fact if I take a screenshot it appears on my iPad and I can annotate it instantly with apple pencil. I use this tens of times a day.
4. Spotlight search. Unlike the fucking shit show that is windows search it actually works. Finances spreadsheet Cmd+space+fina+enter and it's there on the screen within half a second of my lifting the enter key.
5. No cables. Literally power and monitor. That's it!
6. Actual decent apps supplied. Mail, contacts, calendar, reminders, maps, notes, apple music all working not half arsed shitty metro apps which are buggy and abandoned.
7. Compatibility. They changed the CPU architecture and people don't have to care about it. All the Intel stuff just works with barely any performance hit.
8. Power. Uses SFA. 26W flat out. 6W idle.
9. Everything works on temporarily connected networks unlike most things these days.

I actually hate using a windows machine since I got this. It really is a world away from them.

[AVGresponding]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

I do wonder what the performance of the scope will be like up at 500MHz, given the sample rate is 500MS/s...

I have a 4GHz 75kS/s scope. The first boat anchor digitising scope I used in the late 80s was 1GHz, 25MS/s.

Yes but was that an analog scope with digital storage added, or a porpoise built DSO?

I know my TDS420 goes into ET at the drop of a hat (200MHz, 100MS/s).

[Zucca]

I actually hate using a windows machine since I got this. It really is a world away from them.

Good channel Coldfusion!

I personally hate Apple but this time I have to bend my knees, but not my wallet since I will never buy Apple by definition 

[mnementh]

I worked around the Microsoft spasm by sticking with Windows 7...  and now Windows 10 looks pretty much like an upgrade to Windows 7 with a few added bells and whistles, which is what Microsoft should have done in the first place.  MS is lucky that there is so much inertia in the marketplace that they seem to have gotten away with several disastrous decisions...   Macs have always had a nice and intuitive user interface.  I've used them since the 80's, LOL.   I do have a Macbook Pro, but I rarely use it - prefer to use the 'big rig' desktop setup.

I never had that problem... or maybe I never had the luxury given what I do for a living.  Aside from their brief detour into insanity of trying to force us to use the Metrosexual Interface on our desktops, all the real changes from 7 to 8, 8.1, 10RC and 10 build x, y, and z have been a pretty logical progression, at least to me.

The only thing I really miss aboot Win7 was the clear path of discoverability to pretty much every feature-set. From Win'98 to Win7, the OS would teach you how to use it if you just clicked on very obvious radio buttons. The drive to streamline and declutter for the "Metro look" went entirely too far in the opposite direction, and shows no signs of backing off. When necessary functional stuff in the actual UI is only differentiated from the surrounding text as text in a different shade of grey, your designers are definitely lost in the fucking woods.

I do, however, suffer similar chronic PTSD to Android with the recent ever-changing versions of iOS/iPadOS on my iPuds... especially when it comes to integrating that schizz with the associated online services.  I've pretty much given up on any of my tablets (between parents and kids, we typically have 3-7 of them at any time) being much more than a internet browser and Amazon shopping portal.

In retrospect, probably my biggest ongoing gripe with MS has to be their fucking jihad against simple serial comms. Every time I turn around some update has borked the drivers for stuff I need to configure via serial. 

mnem