Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

Yep that was yahoo auctions and is dead

... but not gone.

Most of the online auction houses have "extend by X minutes after last bid", so as to allow buyers to increase their price until their pips squeak.

[Berni]

Im not a fan of this extending the end time when a bid comes in(popcorn bidding). Instead of just throwing out your best offer and hope it bites you now have to agonizingly watch it and wait for the time to run down. Then with a few seconds to go someone outbids you and provokes you to make a counter bid. And it all slowly pushes the price up and up. Its a great method for the seller to squeeze the highest price out of the buyer.

Ebay has a really nice system if you imagine it as everyone putting there bid in a sealed envelope and once the bidding ends the envelopes are opened and the one who bid the most wins.

[Zucca]

I use gixen.com and I love it.
Sniping or not, if you will find guys with big money and no mercy you will be always a loser.

Bidding war is always good if you are the seller, otherwise run Forrest run.

[Cerebus]

Guys you're driving me to distraction by referring to  dual-rail supplies as bipolar supplies. A dual-rail supply has three binding posts (-,0,+) and bipolar supply has two binding posts (0,+/-), i.e. the 'hot' binding posting can be at either a negative or positive potential relative to the 'cold' post. The better ones are four-quadrant, that is can sink or source current at both polarities.

Here's a bipolar supply

[battlecoder]

@Cerebrus That's an interesting supply. I have to admit I didn't know they existed.

About ebay, I also have a love-hate relationship with bids. It's exciting and sometimes fun, but MAN it sucks when you are dealing with "pro" bidders. Whether they use a tool or are old-school master snipers, it sucks when they outbid you in the last microsecond.

[Cubdriver]

Good advice 

I’m a sniping bastard. I’ll bid the amount I want to pay at 5 seconds to go. That amount is based on previous sale prices plus worth to me and risk. Worst case I’ll cost someone else some more money

If you're actually bidding yourself, it's one thing, though I'd still prefer a proper bidding war. I can't stand the automated bids, though. It takes the fun out of it.

You prefer a bidding war?  Why do you want to pay more for what you're buying?  As a buyer, I prefer to get things as inexpensively as possible.  Bid my max at the last moment and let the chips fall where they may.

-Pat

[Specmaster]

Good advice 

I’m a sniping bastard. I’ll bid the amount I want to pay at 5 seconds to go. That amount is based on previous sale prices plus worth to me and risk. Worst case I’ll cost someone else some more money

If you're actually bidding yourself, it's one thing, though I'd still prefer a proper bidding war. I can't stand the automated bids, though. It takes the fun out of it.

You prefer a bidding war?  Why do you want to pay more for what you're buying?  As a buyer, I prefer to get things as inexpensively as possible.  Bid my max at the last moment and let the chips fall where they may.

-Pat

I'm with bd139 but, if I really want it I might be prepared to have another go if time permits. I usually have 2 tabs open, in 1 I'll put what I hope I might win at and the other I put a slightly higher amount incase I get sniped at the last moment. Often however I'm too late with 2nd bid.

Sent from my SM-J510FN using Tapatalk

[Ero-Shan]

So this is haul 2 ("the final one", well, we'll see ...)

Less exciting stuff than the first installment, but that's by design: I tried to secure the better things first. Some things have been found during the last weeks in some nooks and crannies, though. 

I've pictured also 2 fine "measuring instruments" of older technology and a potentiometer with pretty good linearity (also part of the lot).

The abundance of Philips scope models lets me assume they've had too much time on their hands and let them make a new model for every 5 MHz of bandwidth.

And yes, most of the stuff wears a 'defective' sticker, and those that don't are not necessarily better. And the worst thing is, that the company either kept the instrument or the manual. So I have manuals of devices I'd long to have, and non-working equipment where I have little chance of repairing without a manual. 

Without much further ado, here's the pics.

[Ero-Shan]

Good advice 

I’m a sniping bastard. I’ll bid the amount I want to pay at 5 seconds to go. That amount is based on previous sale prices plus worth to me and risk. Worst case I’ll cost someone else some more money

Guess I'm a sniper then, too. I bid exactly once the amount I'm willing to pay somewhere in the last 10 seconds. Either this is it, or not. If you bid early on your max and are trumped 1 hour before the auction ends, you get lured into bidding just a little more, ending up with paying twice what your original 'max' was. I have no problem losing a bid this way. But I have a severe problem when I bid on a nice HP frequency counter quite a bit more than the current highest, forgetting to hit "Confirm" and seeing the thing go for this price! I was doing this several times already ...  Serves me right, I guess.

[Specmaster]

So this is haul 2 ("the final one", well, we'll see ...)

Less exciting stuff than the first installment, but that's by design: I tried to secure the better things first. Some things have been found during the last weeks in some nooks and crannies, though. 

I've pictured also 2 fine "measuring instruments" of older technology and a potentiometer with pretty good linearity (also part of the lot).

The abundance of Philips scope models lets me assume they've had too much time on their hands and let them make a new model for every 5 MHz of bandwidth.

And yes, most of the stuff wears a 'defective' sticker, and those that don't are not necessarily better. And the worst thing is, that the company either kept the instrument or the manual. So I have manuals of devices I'd long to have, and non-working equipment where I have little chance of repairing without a manual. 

Without much further ado, here's the pics.

Wow, you have done rather well I think, if you can get both lots working you will be able to sell some to pay for other items that will complement the ones that you retain. Breaks my heart to think that without your intervention that lot would have ended up in the dump somewhere and some of them might only need a clean up of contacts, re-capping etc and then its good to go again, well done, glad you was there to keep it out of land fill.

[Berni]

I know it sucks to loose bidding on an item. But hey sometimes someone else simply has deeper pockets. You learn to accept it after a number of lost auctions.

When the reason for not winning an item is my own screw up is when i do get angry. Like setting up a watch on something, keeping my eye on it every day, then on the ending day i forget to check ebay and then see that nice thing i wanted has just sold really cheep.

Guys you're driving me to distraction by referring to  dual-rail supplies as bipolar supplies. A dual-rail supply has three binding posts (-,0,+) and bipolar supply has two binding posts (0,+/-), i.e. the 'hot' binding posting can be at either a negative or positive potential relative to the 'cold' post. The better ones are four-quadrant, that is can sink or source current at both polarities.

Here's a bipolar supply
[img]

Now that is actually quite an interesting piece of gear, never seen anything like it before.

But yeah dual rail power supply would be a more appropriate thing to call them. Versus a dual output power supply where the outputs are floating in reference to each other and that's what i would want from it.

[bd139]

I'm after a bipolar power supply if anyone is getting rid of one

Need tracking.

[Berni]

I'm after a bipolar power supply if anyone is getting rid of one

Need tracking.

And i would guess you had no need for one 3 hours ago before you saw the post from Cerebus.

Actually one of them does look nice....Damn it this thread is not helping my TEA

[bd139]

No I've been after an E3630 or equivalent for about a month.

(for an actual project which has a return!)

[Specmaster]

While I'm currently sort of kicking my heels waiting on service manuals, parts and other bits and bobs to arrive, I thought that I'd revisit my Keithley 160 which had a badly scratched and generally crusty case. I removed the top and prepped it for a coat of paint which although has some runs in it and blemishes in the case have come through, it still looks far better then it did in the first place. I'll have to take it right back to bare metal and prime it and then give it several coats of top coat when we get some better weather (next year). 
While the cover was I checked the calibration against my Fluke 8505A and other meters on the DCV ranges and noticed that it was out of step with the others by approx 600mV so I have at least for now until my voltage reference arrives in a few weeks, set it up to agree the 8505A so thats good for now.

Maybe I'll tackle these internet radios I have here in the repair queue, anybody have any experience of repairing them at all? 

[bitseeker]

Guys you're driving me to distraction by referring to  dual-rail supplies as bipolar supplies. A dual-rail supply has three binding posts (-,0,+) and bipolar supply has two binding posts (0,+/-), i.e. the 'hot' binding posting can be at either a negative or positive potential relative to the 'cold' post. The better ones are four-quadrant, that is can sink or source current at both polarities.

Now that is actually quite an interesting piece of gear, never seen anything like it before.

But yeah dual rail power supply would be a more appropriate thing to call them. Versus a dual output power supply where the outputs are floating in reference to each other and that's what i would want from it.

Sorry for being loose with the terminology. Based on this, the E3631A, which is called a "triple-output" supply, is actually a single-output plus dual-rail supply, or perhaps a dual-output supply where one output features a dual rail.

[neo]

Something every TEA can find amusing, or infuriating. My soldering iron handle was coming in the mail, old one broke, and it gets put on the wrong truck, i think so at least for lack of better explanation, and gets driven 300 miles the wrong way before they catch it and get it turned back around. The only thing they had to say was "Delayed. "

 

Good news,
It works and i can solder again!
They have brilliant engineers.
I got a deal on this one due to it being open box.

Bad news,
I now need a new a base if i want it to fit correctly, this new hand piece fits loosely in the old base.
They changed the connector style nearly causing me to sh*t a brick. Refer to the engineer comment.
The USPS is apparently semi incompetent.

[bitseeker]

Similarly amusing or infuriating is when a package arrives ahead of schedule and held at the carrier's destination depot because it's "not scheduled to be delivered."

[mnementh]

Well just as i thought i got rid of my TEA i happened to come across that wrong side of ebay again...

So i bid and scored a HP 83483A (Dual channel 20GHz Electrical sampling module)

<image snipped to save space>

Only issue is that i don't have the HP 83480A (Sampling scope mainframe) to put that plugin module into. So i bought one of those too. It even has Option 100 Enhanced trigger that bumps the trigger bandwidth from 2,5GHz to 15GHz.

<image snipped to save space>

Guess my TEA is back on track for a while.

Now that there is TEA done right.  Buy the widget, then use the purchase of the widget to justify buying the piece of gear that the widget goes in.  Well done, my good sir!!

 

-Pat

IIRC, there's a company that makes a drop-in LCD/touchscreen upgrade for these in 7" and 9" versions. I was looking at a similar vintage spectrum analyzer and tripped over one of their kits (turns mono into keyed color display too) in the resultant Googling and was like... Dayummm!

I use gixen.com and I love it.
Sniping or not, if you will find guys with big money and no mercy you will be always a loser.

Bidding war is always good if you are the seller, otherwise run Forrest run.

Yeah, Gix is your friend; they help you level the playing field. I've been using them for a decade or so... it's been so long I don't remember. Bottom line is if you don't, you're just playing with yourself; hoping you caught the one auction for an item that slipped through the cracks and went unnoticed.

There are oodles of professional bidders snipers out there with very complicated scripts and servers just SCOURING fleaBay for every piece of equipment that's worth more than scrap weight; if you don't arm yourself with at least a Sniping service, you're playing to lose.


mnem
*Surreptitiously sniping Snoopy since something-ought-something*

[ChrisLX200]

Today I added my sixth DMM (seventh if you include Colibri SmartTweezers) with delivery of a Rigol 3058. It was the devil's own job making space for it on my shelves, I had to drop the lowest shelf by just 1" so it would stack 2 devices high. Anyway, is 6 DMMs entering dangerous territory? Still looking for a 6-1/2 digit DMM though 

[bitseeker]

Ah, I see your frequency counter project there. I liked the enclosure and buttons you did for that one.

As far DMMs, I'm probably not one to ask about dangerous territory. Since you don't yet have a 6.5-digit one, it seems you're doing just fine getting one. Now, which 6.5-digit DMM to get?

[ChrisLX200]

Got my eye on a Keithley 2100 but it will likely cost too much...

I used the same alloy section to put a front panel on my fixed-rail PSU:

[HalFET]

I went full DMM (volt)nuts and bought a 2001, for those days you need µOhm measurements 

But might have gone a bit overboard in the last year as well, the current list of what I kept so far is:
R&S CMU200
R&S SMH (with AF synth and TXCO)
Wayne Kerr 6425 (two of them, fixing one which has a broken horizontal screen deflection)
HP 5316A Counter
Weston Cell
Keysight U1232A
FLUKE F17B+
Keithley 130
Keithley 2001
NI GPIB card
Rigol DP832 (Rigol EU clearance sale)

So +/- 5000 EUR   And got my eye set on a 800 EUR acquisition card as well.

[bitseeker]

Welcome, HalFET. What nice toys you have. (Toys in the best sense, of course.)

[Specmaster]

I went full DMM (volt)nuts and bought a 2001, for those days you need µOhm measurements 

But might have gone a bit overboard in the last year as well, the current list of what I kept so far is:
R&S CMU200
R&S SMH (with AF synth and TXCO)
Wayne Kerr 6425 (two of them, fixing one which has a broken horizontal screen deflection)
HP 5316A Counter
Weston Cell
Keysight U1232A
FLUKE F17B+
Keithley 130
Keithley 2001
NI GPIB card
Rigol DP832 (Rigol EU clearance sale)

So +/- 5000 EUR   And got my eye set on a 800 EUR acquisition card as well.

Thats some serious stuff you have amassed in a year, I hope your on good terms with your bank manager  Are these just toys or are you doing something specific with that kit you get there?

Makes me feel like a kid looking in the toy shop windows all over again