Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

When was that when he came to you?

About 4 months ago when I got Cable TV back on a special offer. He had to install the box.

Well, he might not have heard about Heathkit then seeing as they ceased trading in 1992, he was only a small child back then.

Why do you keep bringing up Heathkit? The vast majority of my stuff on display is Tektronix and he STILL had no fucking clue. 

No reason really apart from maybe Heathkit was more a consumer name than Tektronix would have been. My sons are in their late 30's now and even though I have plenty of well known (to us) names in my lab, none of my sons would have a clue what I was talking about if I mentioned their name. On the other hand however, if I mention Samsug, Apple, LG, Panasonic or Sony then they would have some idea as they are consumer type names.

I edited my post after you posted this. It wasn't the brand. He did NOT know what an OSCILLOSCOPE was and for someone working as a cable installer tech that is just freaking sad.   

[BU508A]

The world is full of ignorants.   

[Specmaster]

When was that when he came to you?

About 4 months ago when I got Cable TV back on a special offer. He had to install the box.

Well, he might not have heard about Heathkit then seeing as they ceased trading in 1992, he was only a small child back then.

Why do you keep bringing up Heathkit? The vast majority of my stuff on display is Tektronix and he STILL had no fucking clue. 

No reason really apart from maybe Heathkit was more a consumer name than Tektronix would have been. My sons are in their late 30's now and even though I have plenty of well known (to us) names in my lab, none of my sons would have a clue what I was talking about if I mentioned their name. On the other hand however, if I mention Samsug, Apple, LG, Panasonic or Sony then they would have some idea as they are consumer type names.

I edited my post after you posted this. It wasn't the brand. He did NOT know what an OSCILLOSCOPE was and for someone working as a cable installer tech that is just freaking sad.   

Oh I see, but don't forget that these days they are dumbing down skills, like I mentioned in my earlier post regarding smart meter installers are just meter readers trained up sufficiently to be able to disconnect live tails, remove the old meter, fit the smart meter and re-connect the live tails again, why, because its a freaking lot cheaper to do that then send out a fully qualified engineer, and maybe its the same for your cable guys.

[med6753]

The world is full of ignorants.   

We are becoming a society of smart phone dummies. 

[BU508A]

The world is full of ignorants.   

We are becoming a society of smart phone dummies. 

You mean, the smart part is changing to the phone? 

[mnementh]

Yeah... that is just another aspect of the "specialized knowledge" nature of work in the modern marketplace. You only get the training you absolutely have to have, and they do their best to make it so the role can be filled by any monkey with a warm body.

They don't need to know aboot dB losses and bandwidth limits; all they need to know is a checklist with maximum number of tees and splices, and how to remote into the router/cable box with the app on their phone to do provisioning and confirm signal level within limits and that all the data channels UP/DWN that are supposed to be connecting are in fact doing so. If not, their solution is to either run new cable or replace the box with one that works, which they may or may not even have on hand.

Yes, there are some CATV installers with an electronics background, I've done it myself; but they are not the majority, nor do they have to be. They save the man-hours of knowledgeable techs for the repeat problem installs. The bottom line here is, after all, the bottom line.

The differences between Cable Internet and Cable TV are converging more and more every generation; it won't be long before they're both the same box for all installs. The latter has already gotten to the point you can buy your own DOCSIS3.x.x MODEM at Wally World and self-install with a phone call.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

Guys I may or may not be on discord tonight, I have something to do that must take priority tonight for a while first. It all depends on certain things lining up correctly, keep your fingers crossed, or not as maybe 

[mnementh]

The world is full of ignorants.   

We are becoming a society of smart phone dummies. 

You mean, the smart part is changing to the phone? 

There's a grain of truth in that... given the reptilian nature of my alter-ego, and obvious comparisons to me being a dinosaur in my own right... I've taken to calling it my hindbrain for over a decade now... 

mnem
...and still cannot get rid of SPAMmers... 

[bd139]

The world is full of ignorants.   

We are becoming a society of smart phone dummies. 

You mean, the smart part is changing to the phone? 

To be clear on this. We only noticed they were dummies because they got the smart phone and used it to communicate. It ain’t the phone’s fault it’s smarter than they are

[AVGresponding]

I edited my post after you posted this. It wasn't the brand. He did NOT know what an OSCILLOSCOPE was and for someone working as a cable installer tech that is just freaking sad.   

The gas engineer that came to service my fire a few weeks back thought my pile-o-meters was a stack of audio amps...



Discord is rampaging across the interwebs. Well, maybe ambling is a better adjective...

[Cerebus]

Soldering achieved. It was much more relaxing than fiddling with the bowels of an iPhone.



Note the individual sockets for the OCXO, and the thermistor at R5 that will lurk under the OCXO thereby allowing some temperature monitoring of it. It took some doing finding an NTC thermistor that was just the right size to fit under the OCXO, let the OCXO bumps make contact with the board and the thermistor make contact with the OCXO.



With OCXO plugged in.

(Please excuse hurried photos, need to eat...)

[Robert763]

So I found a new bunny hole to jump into...a natural extension of electronics tinkering is wanting to be able to make small parts. And my local used tool guy had juuuust what I needed... 

Unimat SL 1000, basically brand new. Missing some accessories (notably, the milling table). I need to get more lathe tools for sure as well, as it only came with one of unknown provenance.

I would probably kill for one of those. Some of the cheap Chinese mini-lathes are OK, but most are not a patch, quality-wise, on the old British and American hobby/model-engineering lathes. I just ain't got the room for anything bigger...

Yeah, I've got the same problem. Eventually I will have a proper machine shop, but that will be a next house problem for sure. In the meantime, this will allow me to dip my toes into making small parts for projects.

I do need to track down some of the accessories this Unimat is missing. I'd like to get a milling table+vise (though all the recommendations I see is to get a second Unimat if you want to use both functions...to save time realigning when swapping), thread cutter, and a better selection of tools and end mills.

That is just a reminder to me that I have to get my Myford ML2 up and running. Biggest problem is that the space I'd left in front of it is now occupied by a small gas turbine engine. I need clear so crap out of the garage. I might also move the Tek scopemobile up to the workshop in the house and put the 492BP on it. I've got a replacement spindle and bearings for the ML2 but need to them installed and get it set up. I've got a suitably sized servo motor and drive that I'm considering using for it. Completely over the top compared to a 3 phase motor and VFD but I've got it (actually it's on loan to someone, I must get it back) so why not? I could even put toothed belts or and an enoder on the spindle and make it indexable 
The Unimat you have picked up looks in good nick. It is about as basic a lathe as you can get though. No screwcutting for staarters and fairly high speeds. It's not really rigid enough for milling anything other than plastic. That said a lot of good work has been done on them.

[Robert763]

Todays stupid eBay valuation, I think the seller has been at the magic mushrooms again 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154058876130

They also have a scope for sale for £48401.00, OBO. Yes, that decimal point is in the correct  place

Well it is a 4 channel, 8GHz, 10 bit Mixed signal 'scope........

The seller is a TE rental company Their target market is professional users not us. You can find the odd bargain amonst their listings but a distinct paucity of phots and descriptions does not help.
 

[Cerebus]

Todays stupid eBay valuation, I think the seller has been at the magic mushrooms again 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154058876130

They also have a scope for sale for £48401.00, OBO. Yes, that decimal point is in the correct  place

Well it is a 4 channel, 8GHz, 10 bit Mixed signal 'scope........

The seller is a TE rental company Their target market is professional users not us. You can find the odd bargain amonst their listings but a distinct paucity of phots and descriptions does not help.
 

I suspect their target is idiots who don't know what they are buying.

Standard practice for these kind of rental companies is to keep the kit until they have got the purchase price of the kit back in rentals times some factor that varies from company to company  (usually something like 3-5). By the time they have done this the kit has a book value for them of zero. They turn the stuff over quite quickly. If you've seen rental rates for TE you'll realise that it doesn't have to be rented many times to hit the target earnings. They turn it over quickly it because rental kit has to be reliable, perform falultlessly, in cal, etc. and the hard life that rental kit leads works against that. Then they sell it off but NOT into the same market that rents from them (for obvious reasons) and any money they get for it is excess profit from their point of view.

Putting near new, sometimes the same as new, prices on the kit microlease sell secondhand is greed of the first order and they must be looking for mugs to pay that price for well used, secondhand, kit. They are just hoping that some mug will come along on ebay, not really know what they're buying, take some comfort from microlease's name and pay well over the odds for kit that has most probably had a hard life.

[Robert763]

Well less than £200 for a known working HP diode power sensor is pretty good.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153164710761?

[Andrew_Debbie]

Tek 7633 with timebase and two dual trace plug-ins.   Current high bid is 5.50EUR

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154492129422  --  Located in Germany.  I asked the seller (in German) about postage to the UK but have not had a reply.

Untested, no guarantee, no returns.     

[Specmaster]

Well less than £200 for a known working HP diode power sensor is pretty good.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153164710761?

Except that it wasnt less than £200, it went for £204.

[Specmaster]

Tek 7633 with timebase and two dual trace plug-ins.   Current high bid is 5.50EUR

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154492129422  --  Located in Germany.  I asked the seller (in German) about postage to the UK but have not had a reply.

Untested, no guarantee, no returns.     

Too risky, I'd walk away from that.

[mnementh]

Todays stupid eBay valuation, I think the seller has been at the magic mushrooms again 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154058876130

They also have a scope for sale for £48401.00, OBO. Yes, that decimal point is in the correct  place

Well it is a 4 channel, 8GHz, 10 bit Mixed signal 'scope........

The seller is a TE rental company Their target market is professional users not us. You can find the odd bargain amonst their listings but a distinct paucity of phots and descriptions does not help.

For comparison, £48401.00 = US$67,289.44 so roughly $15K off new list price.

mnem
 

[Cubdriver]

[...]
And that's why *I* am not inclined to shotgun caps in old test gear.  YMMV.
[...]

Agree.

Why only shotgun the caps, if you are of that ilk?  You'd have to shotgun every component to be really sure nothing has drifted...  and that essentially means... buying new equipment!

Seems a better plan to verify that the old equipment lives up to its specs...  and only start replacing stuff when it doesn't.

Yeah, the latter is the approach I take. When I get something old but new to me I run it through the manufacturer's stated verification procedure* and if that's good and there aren't (from visual inspection) any obvious time-bombs, bulging electrolytics, RIFAs, etc., then I leave well alone.

I'm quite happy to follow Med et al's shotgunning as a spectator sport, but I wouldn't want to participate.

* If there is a written verification procedure. Being mostly an HP fanboy means that there is always one for HP kit and they're usually easy to reproduce, although sometimes you have to be a little creative if you haven't got all the test gear called out in the verification procedure.

This is what e-bay searches are for, and partially why I have an ever expanding collection of gear.  The service manual helps you to find things you didn't realize you needed!   

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

Nice score, 0culus. 

Meanwhile, on the bench...




mnem

That is either a REALLY tiny engine, or a friggin' HUGE battery!!  Is it  an early attempt at an EV?

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

So I found a new bunny hole to jump into...a natural extension of electronics tinkering is wanting to be able to make small parts. And my local used tool guy had juuuust what I needed... 

Unimat SL 1000, basically brand new. Missing some accessories (notably, the milling table). I need to get more lathe tools for sure as well, as it only came with one of unknown provenance.

It's so cute!  If you feed it, will it get bigger?   Seriously, it's a cool little lathe, and looks to be in pristine condition - hope you can find the other goodies to add to its capabilities.  And now you get into the real money in machining - TOOLING to make it do more than just spin.  My little South Bend is currently imitating a piece of exercise equipment - in other words, it's buried in stuff, but in this case garage stuff rather than the clothes that typically adorn treadmills and the like.

Have fun with your new toy, Sean!

-Pat

[VK5RC]

Nice score, 0culus. 

Meanwhile, on the bench...




mnem

That is either a REALLY tiny engine, or a friggin' HUGE battery!!  Is it  an early attempt at an EV?

-Pat

@Pat You have had the luxury of rarely having to deal with Lucas electrics in cars - 'Mr Lucas - the prince of darkness - who accidentally invented the intermittent windscreen wiper etc. To get a 1960s Lucas containing car started in winter you will need a bigger battery than that! HiHi
😂

[vk6zgo]

The last cable guy I had here had no clue as what my stuff was. 

Years ago one of my sons had an auto sparky over who was trying to show off with his "knowledge" and started talking about an oscilloscope, expecting to befuddle my son.

However the shoe ended up on the other foot when my son not only knew what he was talking about, but that we had one in the house.  Seems the sparky was taken aback - significantly.

.... and I missed it.

Like the people sent out by my "Internet Service Provider" back when I had ADSL.
The contractor came out, checked, using an ordinary ADSL modem that it wasn't connecting.
Said "he had to go back & talk to the ISP, who would get back to me".

"Crickets" for about a week, then rang the ISP & nagged them-------they promised to send a bloke out to follow things up.

The same bloke turned up, rubbed his beard, & said he would go get the "Da Dum!!" TDR out of his car.
Looking very scientific, he hung it across the line, mumbled something about having to "pass it to Telstra".

I could not for the life of me see why, if the thing was in the car, he didn't use it the first time!

He really treated the TDR as if it was "the wonder of the age"-------I didn't have the heart to tell him the old PMG Dept used them, in the form of the old PET (Pulse Echo Tester) back in the 1960s!

Further down the rabbit hole, eventually after much more time, Telstra became involved, a tech came out, said the lead in from the pit was faulty & needed replacement, but that "had to be done by a team of contractors".

We had to go away for a few weeks, so were concerned about that, but when Telstra rang us to confirm a date for a visit from the contractors, they said they wouldn't need us to be home.

Coming home, didn't seem to be any sign of disturbance of the ground, so we assumed that the cable had just been replaced, retaining the old conduit.
This was 2012.

All seemed well, but a while down the track, the ADSL failed & the phone became noisy, so I bypassed the ISP & rang Telstra.

The "tech" came out, fiddled in the pit, "let slip" that the leadin hadn't been changed, reterminated a few dodgy connections.
The phone noise dropped to a relatively low level, the ADSL came back, with reduced performance, the tech went away satified.

We weren't but we decided to "live with it"

Over the next few years, we had 2-3 phone fails eacn year, & I became pretty convinced we had an intermittent fault in the leadin cable.
The techs varied in competence around a pretty poor base line.

Ultimately, in 2019, we had become eligible for connection to NBN "Fibre to the curb", so I thought I would have to get the lead in problem sorted "once & for all".

Amazingly, this time they sent someone who knew what he was doing.
He agreed that it was a faulty lead in cable, so he pulled a new cable through the conduit, taking about 30 minutes max.

No more lead in problem!
The bloke in 2012 could have done the same thing, if he had an ounce of competence, as could the others.

What gripes me, is that I could have done it myself, but I'm not allowed to!

[Cubdriver]

Nice score, 0culus. 

Meanwhile, on the bench...




mnem

That is either a REALLY tiny engine, or a friggin' HUGE battery!!  Is it  an early attempt at an EV?

-Pat

@Pat You have had the luxury of rarely having to deal with Lucas electrics in cars - 'Mr Lucas - the prince of darkness - who accidentally invented the intermittent windscreen wiper etc. To get a 1960s Lucas containing car started in winter you will need a bigger battery than that! HiHi
😂

Ahh, yes, I've heard of the three position Lucas headlight switch - off, dim and flicker. 

-Pat