Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[URI]

A funny thought occurred to me, i have four 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit and two 5.5 digit multimeters.

It seems as if my test equipment is ganging together to tell me i need 6.5 next... 

OK, sounds like a mathematically well-defined buying list. 
So you want to increase your stock by three 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit, three 5.5 digit, three 6.5 digit, two 7.5 digit multimeters for adding a 8.5 digit multimeter finally..      

I like your thinking, though that would have me winding up with only 24 meters.

Thank you. 
You could arrange them in a pyramidal arrangement with the 8.5 digit multimeter on top then.   

[neo]

Not that i have any money left this month, but has anyone had any positive experience with an 8500A?
That is to say what do you lot suppose my chances of getting a working one as opposed to a dud would be?

[Cubdriver]

A funny thought occurred to me, i have four 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit and two 5.5 digit multimeters.

It seems as if my test equipment is ganging together to tell me i need 6.5 next... 

OK, sounds like a mathematically well-defined buying list. 
So you want to increase your stock by three 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit, three 5.5 digit, three 6.5 digit, two 7.5 digit multimeters for adding a 8.5 digit multimeter finally..      

I like your thinking, though that would have me winding up with only 24 meters.

Yeah.  In that pile.  Then you start another.   

-Pat

[Specmaster]

Picked up my Thandar TF930 this afternoon , they wouldn't let me get it yesterday, paying for something and then because you live fairly local, wanting to go and collect it doesn't compute with them, they say that their security policy states that you must give them 24hr notice of a collection, date and time as well as who is doing the collection is required.

Well here is a photo of it connected to my function gen at 25MHz (max of gen) @ 1v and first impressions are it is so lightweight and the biggest problem by far at this price point in the market, is I fear that it does not have a backlit display 

Not sure if the internal batteries will charge when running on USB power from my PC or not as the charging LED is not lit so need to crack this sucker open and take a squizz inside and see whats happening.

So bd139 to answer your question, no its not a turd so you should be happy with yours apart from the poor display, but I may find it should be backlit once I get like Flynn and get in it.

 

[bd139]

Excellent. Looks good and in good condition. They still haven’t dispatched mine yet.

I expect the screen to be a little crappy as it’s got battery option so it’s portable. This was actually a selling point for my use cases.

Batteries won’t charge off USB - need to use the DC jack. Says so in the manual

[Specmaster]

I got like Flynn and the short answer is no, its not backlit, there is I believe space for some LEDS around the edge of the display as photos will show once I get them on line, but and its a big one, shining a torch on the edge of the screen does not improve it. So the only way to be 100% certain is to get myself some high power white LEDs and rig something up on a temporary basis and try it out. Dinner calls, I be back later with some internal photos for ya all.

[Specmaster]

Excellent. Looks good and in good condition. They still haven’t dispatched mine yet.

I expect the screen to be a little crappy as it’s got battery option so it’s portable. This was actually a selling point for my use cases.

Batteries won’t charge off USB - need to use the DC jack. Says so in the manual

Yep, found myself a wall jack and it's charging right now. If you wanted it to be portable, you've chosen wisely, it is that once batteries are charged and both compact and very light.

[bd139]

There’s bugger all inside them. Board at the front with counter on and a power supply board with some NiMh batteries cable tied to it.

Worst case if you don’t like it, wait until they’re all gone and put it up as a buy it now tested working for £100 and it’ll go for that (check eBay sold history). Can’t possibly be a bad investment. Better than share return

[Cerebus]

They still haven’t dispatched mine yet.

Neither mine, target delivery date is Friday so they'd better get their skates on.

[bd139]

Says “other 24 hour courier” so they can dispatch the day before in theory. Bloody annoying though as I’m really busy for the latter half of the week.

Doing full calibration on my 2225 at the moment. Going well so far. Previous owner had been frigging with the pots so mag balance and triggering were both off.

[Mr. Scram]

Excellent. Looks good and in good condition. They still haven’t dispatched mine yet.

I expect the screen to be a little crappy as it’s got battery option so it’s portable. This was actually a selling point for my use cases.

Batteries won’t charge off USB - need to use the DC jack. Says so in the manual

Looks like they upped the price for some reason. It seems them being slow to respond is going to cost me money. It doesn't end, does it? 

[bd139]

So they have. Wonder if I will actually get mine now.

[Mr. Scram]

So they have. Wonder if I will actually get mine now.

I've been trying to communicate with them, but other than one albeit polite message, they haven't really been forthcoming. All this shouldn't be that hard.

[Specmaster]

They still haven’t dispatched mine yet.

Neither mine, target delivery date is Friday so they'd better get their skates on.

I wouldn't worry to much about that, I don't know for sure but I have a strong feeling that they use couriers who do a 48 hour delivery or better maybe. They are good items though and as already mentioned, my work area is very cramped and tends to be quite dark even though my bench is by a window, but window faces North so does get any really good daylight. The lighting is also not in a very good spot to properly illuminate the display so it tends to be quite hard to read at times, unlike my other counter which has a nice bright LED display.

The photo demonstrates this (flash was used on the camera to illuminate the LCD but also drowns out the LED  ) the resolution on the TF930 is of course far higher which in this photo was set for 5 decimal places and the Velleman defaults to 3 on the 10MHz range at 50KHz input and is actually reading 50.002KHz but scan rate v shutter speed clashed a bit.

[bitseeker]

A funny thought occurred to me, i have four 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit and two 5.5 digit multimeters.

It seems as if my test equipment is ganging together to tell me i need 6.5 next... 

OK, sounds like a mathematically well-defined buying list. 
So you want to increase your stock by three 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit, three 5.5 digit, three 6.5 digit, two 7.5 digit multimeters for adding a 8.5 digit multimeter finally..      

That'd break the pyramid and minimize GAS. What you need is something like the following:

                                     8.5
                             7.5            7.5
                     6.5           6.5           6.5
              5.5          5.5            5.5          5.5
       4.5         4.5           4.5           4.5          4.5
3.5         3.5          3.5            3.5          3.5         3.5

[neo]

A funny thought occurred to me, i have four 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit and two 5.5 digit multimeters.

It seems as if my test equipment is ganging together to tell me i need 6.5 next... 

OK, sounds like a mathematically well-defined buying list. 
So you want to increase your stock by three 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit, three 5.5 digit, three 6.5 digit, two 7.5 digit multimeters for adding a 8.5 digit multimeter finally..      

That'd break the pyramid and minimize GAS. What you need is something like the following:

                                     8.5
                             7.5            7.5
                     6.5           6.5           6.5
              5.5          5.5            5.5          5.5
       4.5         4.5           4.5           4.5          4.5
3.5         3.5          3.5            3.5          3.5         3.5

One small issue with the pyramid idea, my 8400A is in a big server rack chassis, as will my future 8500A. Kinda ruins the pyramid, between that and some odd non standard cases a pyramid is out.

[tautech]

A funny thought occurred to me, i have four 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit and two 5.5 digit multimeters.

It seems as if my test equipment is ganging together to tell me i need 6.5 next... 

OK, sounds like a mathematically well-defined buying list. 
So you want to increase your stock by three 3.5 digit, three 4.5 digit, three 5.5 digit, three 6.5 digit, two 7.5 digit multimeters for adding a 8.5 digit multimeter finally..      

That'd break the pyramid and minimize GAS. What you need is something like the following:

                                     8.5
                             7.5            7.5
                     6.5           6.5           6.5
              5.5          5.5            5.5          5.5
       4.5         4.5           4.5           4.5          4.5
3.5         3.5          3.5            3.5          3.5         3.5

ONLY 21 meters needed. 

[HalFET]

You could do this with the rackmount size Datron units!

[Specmaster]

Excellent. Looks good and in good condition. They still haven’t dispatched mine yet.

I expect the screen to be a little crappy as it’s got battery option so it’s portable. This was actually a selling point for my use cases.

Batteries won’t charge off USB - need to use the DC jack. Says so in the manual

Looks like they upped the price for some reason. It seems them being slow to respond is going to cost me money. It doesn't end, does it? 

So they have, cheeky buggers, I reckon I got mine at the right time then. I can see whats happened here, if you look further in their listings, and there are many pages, they also have the TF830 counter for £50 and that is only a 1.3GHz so I suspect that someone in the office has noticed the mistake and corrected it. But if you have already ordered and paid then I expect you will still get yours at the agreed prices, I cannot see then welching on the deal they too much of a reputable company to do that.

They really are a busy company with lorries in and out all day long and do a lot of exporting as well from there as I witnessed today, they have one of their warehouses full of racks laden with stuff for export.

[Mr. Scram]

So they have, cheeky buggers, I reckon I got mine at the right time then. I can see whats happened here, if you look further in their listings, and there are many pages, they also have the TF830 counter for £50 and that is only a 1.3GHz so I suspect that someone in the office has noticed the mistake and corrected it. But if you have already ordered and paid then I expect you will still get yours at the agreed prices, I cannot see then welching on the deal they too much of a reputable company to do that.

They really are a busy company with lorries in and out all day long and do a lot of exporting as well from there as I witnessed today, they have one of their warehouses full of racks laden with stuff for export.

That's the point. They were obviously willing to trade with me, but due to their eBay settings I couldn't actually make an offer or buy a unit. They've been slow to respond and now they've increased the price on the units. Strictly speaking they're doing nothing wrong, but I don't quite feel I'm getting the good end of the stick here.

[Specmaster]

So they have, cheeky buggers, I reckon I got mine at the right time then. I can see whats happened here, if you look further in their listings, and there are many pages, they also have the TF830 counter for £50 and that is only a 1.3GHz so I suspect that someone in the office has noticed the mistake and corrected it. But if you have already ordered and paid then I expect you will still get yours at the agreed prices, I cannot see then welching on the deal they too much of a reputable company to do that.

They really are a busy company with lorries in and out all day long and do a lot of exporting as well from there as I witnessed today, they have one of their warehouses full of racks laden with stuff for export.

That's the point. They were obviously willing to trade with me, but due to their eBay settings I couldn't actually make an offer or buy a unit. They've been slow to respond and now they've increased the price on the units. Strictly speaking they're doing nothing wrong, but I don't quite feel I'm getting the good end of the stick here.

In that case, I don't know for certain as you have omitted to state your country of residence when you registered with this site, that you must live outside of the UK as their stated policy for deliveries are to the UK only. In your discussions with them did you discuss and agree a price in theory at all? If so and they are happy to honour that price and sell it to me, maybe you could paypal me the money to cover the cost of the units and the packaging and shipping to you, which is where in the world? I could arrange with them to collect it to save on the cost of delivery to me as I live approx 24 miles away for the round trip. Is that possible?

[Specmaster]

Here as promised are the teardown photos showing the display and it might be possible to mount some white LEDs around the edge of the display as it has glass edges exposed and is raised up from the pcb. I'll investigate this a bit more but they would to be switched via a switch on the back plate because it is also a portable battery powered device and the LEDs would reduce the operating time if they were on all the time.

[Mr. Scram]

In that case, I don't know for certain as you have omitted to state your country of residence when you registered with this site, that you must live outside of the UK as their stated policy for deliveries are to the UK only. In your discussions with them did you discuss and agree a price in theory at all? If so and they are happy to honour that price and sell it to me, maybe you could paypal me the money to cover the cost of the units and the packaging and shipping to you, which is where in the world? I could arrange with them to collect it to save on the cost of delivery to me as I live approx 24 miles away for the round trip. Is that possible?

That's the strange bit. In their message to me, they indicated they were happy to ship it to my location, but their settings aren't allowing it so far. I've asked them about his, but they are yet to reply.

I might just take you up on your very friendly offer. I'll discuss the rest in private, if you don't mind.

[bd139]

Thanks for posting the teardown photos. Looks nicely made. Nice to see decent quality GP cells in there too.

I reckon you might be able to get away with backlighting that. Talking of which I came across these the other day looking for a similar solution for a bog standard 4 digit LCD module display (for VFO frequency reporting). I was going to have a button which turned on the backlight for 20 seconds so you could tune: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/visible-leds/7173861/

[Specmaster]

In that case, I don't know for certain as you have omitted to state your country of residence when you registered with this site, that you must live outside of the UK as their stated policy for deliveries are to the UK only. In your discussions with them did you discuss and agree a price in theory at all? If so and they are happy to honour that price and sell it to me, maybe you could paypal me the money to cover the cost of the units and the packaging and shipping to you, which is where in the world? I could arrange with them to collect it to save on the cost of delivery to me as I live approx 24 miles away for the round trip. Is that possible?

That's the strange bit. In their message to me, they indicated they were happy to ship it to my location, but their settings aren't allowing it so far. I've asked them about his, but they are yet to reply.

I might just take you up on your very friendly offer. I'll discuss the rest in private, if you don't mind.

By all means but when they say their settings, it probably refers to the settings on Ebay itself that restricts their ability to do it?