Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

I’ve reported them and shitposted all over Twitter. No one gives a crap.

My local Hermes parcel shop is about a mile away and there’s no bloody parking annoyingly.

[Specmaster]

Well you have got to do something or else there no point in buying all of this lovely test gear, well I suppose there is, but it just means that almost everything needs to be fixed before you can power it up and use it, all of which adds to the cost 

[bd139]

I get it for free but have to fix it. Seller never uses Hermes again 

I’ve had some hefty discounts when stuff gets broken.

[Specmaster]

Thats how I got my Phillips PM 2521 meter, the fascia got smashed into about 100 pieces and was incapable of clipping onto the body. The brackets that used to hold the trigger pot snapped off and so this had to be relocated to the top left side as can be seen here. The display itself would fall out because the fascia fell apart in the left bottom corner so has been glued back together as best possible and held on with tape. I got a full refund for the meter so I thought I'd try and patch it as best I could while I keep an eye open for another, either working or not but with a good fascia. I have WTB ad here in the buy and sell section but it seems that nobody has one that they want to get rid of.

[bd139]

Fun fun fun. To be honest I've never seen Philips meters in good condition. They are quite fragile from what I've seen. I had a PM2524 back in the 00's and that thing was a pile of poo with respect to construction. The whole two board assembly was screwed on with machine screws to the front plastic panel and the previous owner had dropped it. This had broken all the clips, all the polystyrene clips holding it together, the lot. Annoying because their scopes from the same era are bomb proof and the meter's electronics are pretty good.

I'll let you know if I come across one

[bitseeker]

I thought I'd try and patch it as best I could while I keep an eye open for another, either working or not but with a good fascia.

Similarly, I got an Agilent E3630A at a local auction last year. It was like new. When I went to pick it up, someone in the warehouse had dropped it on the concrete floor. The front bezel was busted (LED meters are fine), a couple of switches broken, and the rear bezel broken as well. So, I've been on the lookout for a dead Agilent-branded E3630A in good aesthetic condition to do a transplant.

[bd139]

You'll be lucky if you get a dead one; the things are electrically indestructable. Not too sure about the case though; two part plastic with the bezels on front and rear is rather fragile. I'm liking the new Chinese stuff - seems to have rubber bumpers on everything!

Really nice power supplies those are though. Worth repairing if you can.

(I had an early HP branded E3630 for a bit - had to sell up to pay the bills in mid 2000's )

[Specmaster]

Shame they don't build the cases to match the circuitries longevity then, but then I suppose thats part of the plan, cases that break, meters that seem to get more digits every other year, RF equipment that gets higher and higher frequencies every few years, 4k tv etc, all designed to keep us shelling out our hard earned money..    

[bd139]

I think it's mostly robust. It's just that a lot of people are idiots. I always think of this when I see bust kit:



As for equipment specs, you can get a lot more now for 1/10th of the cost 30 years ago. It's quite remarkable really. Thanks to Wun Hung Lo and Co

[Mr. Scram]

Shame they don't build the cases to match the circuitries longevity then, but then I suppose thats part of the plan, cases that break, meters that seem to get more digits every other year, RF equipment that gets higher and higher frequencies every few years, 4k tv etc, all designed to keep us shelling out our hard earned money..

I don't think the cases are really to blame. If you make better cases, the postal services just invent more creative ways to destroy perfectly fine equipment.

It really pains me to see how much gets destroyed in the mail. Even if you do get your money back, it's one less meter or device to go around.

[bitseeker]

The "parts" units I usually see are the single-channel models. If I end up not being able to find a shell for it, I can always put it into a custom enclosure. Then, I can add displays for all three channels.

[Fungus]

I think it's mostly robust. It's just that a lot of people are idiots. I always think of this when I see bust kit:

I had to figure out how to turn on a more modern iMac yesterday. The scene wasn't much different.

(figured it out eventually though...)

[Berni]

I had to figure out how to turn on a more modern iMac yesterday. The scene wasn't much different.

(figured it out eventually though...)

Pretty similar to how i looked while trying to use Windows 8 for the first time. Closing a media player app that's playing a mp3 and getting back to the desktop has never taken so much trial and error in the history of humanity.

[bd139]

Windows is a complete mess in that respect. It’s a proper Frankenstein job at the moment. It makes me think about the state of all of those bits of high end test gear (and medical equipment) with a PC embedded in them and the ensuing crapfest when they migrate to windows 10 embedded. Ugh.

I like macs. They thought “hey let’s put all the buttons on the thing that’s already got the buttons on it”.

[Mr. Scram]

Windows is a complete mess in that respect. It’s a proper Frankenstein job at the moment. It makes me think about the state of all of those bits of high end test gear (and medical equipment) with a PC embedded in them and the ensuing crapfest when they migrate to windows 10 embedded. Ugh.

I like macs. They thought “hey let’s put all the buttons on the thing that’s already got the buttons on it”.

Don't make the mistake of confusing the GUI for the actual OS. Both Windows 8.1 and 10 are actually fairly streamlined OSs under the hood, as they are evolutions of 8 and 7, and Vista to a lesser degree. The GUI is a work in progress in both. Though I could get behind the "one standard for everyone" philosophy for Windows 10, them making significant changes in every update without a clear indication which version you're dealing it breaks the whole idea and actually makes it worse.

[bd139]

I know windows internals pretty well and streamlined as not what I'd call it. The layers of crud are too deep now even after their "minwin" initiative. Really, a lot of the API, even win32, is pretty nice but it has diverged from something sensible after windows NT 4. I remember running that on my dual Compaq Pentium Pro 200 with a whopping 64Gb of RAM. That was the last good windows machine I had.

Edit: I still have an old PC somewhere and some NT4 media. Hmm.... vintage non internet PC time?

[Specmaster]

And I thought my 32GB of ram was big  Windows XP and 7 were not to bad either. I really don't think that Microsoft are doing themselves any favours though because W10 was supposed to be able to run anything that W7 could, but it can't. I'd just got a few new programs when Win10 was rolled out with the free upgrade and wow, the new programs do not work, even when running as a virtual machine 

[bd139]

64Mb. So used to W writing Gb now

I’ve not had anything not run on Windows 10 yet. LTspice is puking out rendering errors though which isn’t helpful.

[Mr. Scram]

64Mb. So used to W writing Gb now

I’ve not had anything not run on Windows 10 yet. LTspice is puking out rendering errors though which isn’t helpful.

8 MB or 64 MB?

[Specmaster]

Yep, I've got Command and Conquer complete box set, WSC Real 09 and World of Warcraft, all games admittedly that will not run on W10, although to be fair I did have WSC Real 09 working for a while as it installed before doing the upgrade. Since then I've had to do a complete reinstall of W10 and now will not load or do a reinstall and World of Warcraft never did work with W10 

[bd139]

Ah. Don’t play games any more. Last game I played was unreal tournament (1999). Way too many hours blown on that. Oh and Tribes 2.

[Cubdriver]

I fear that I'm heading towards the slippery slope of time nuttery.   



-Pat

[tggzzz]

Yep, I've got Command and Conquer complete box set, WSC Real 09 and World of Warcraft, all games admittedly that will not run on W10

I've got asteroids on an HP scope.

[URI]

I fear that I'm heading towards the slippery slope of time nuttery.   



-Pat

Ah, nice! 
Does it work?
Now you will need a multi-output amplifier to distribute the 10MHz clock to your instruments accepting that as an external reference.. 

[URI]

Bugger!
I received the Fluke PM6685 today without the GPIB option that was the reason for me to buy it. 
The seller will send me a GPIB-board as soon as possible if he has one in stock (or an instrument that has one).
I feel an ESD-attack arising - hope he finds one - PM6685s with GPIB-option are quiet rare.
In the mean time I'll be so SAD.