Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

Mine had the spare on the bonnet, bloody thing about gave you a hernia anytime you wanted to check the water or oil but I can't remember ever getting a flat while away from home. The one time I did the retaining bolts had just about rusted up so they got a good dowsing of anti-seize for fear of not getting it off when miles away from the workshop.

[Specmaster]

Mine was a station wagon. Got wet inside with the roof!

It was a single sheet of metal wasn't it, no lining or anything to reduce the condensation from forming?

[bd139]

Even worse it was a single sheet of metal that some clever dick had decided to stick another sheet over with an air gap. And being aluminium they spaced it with steel spacers. The aluminium causes the spacers to disintegrate and let the water in. I had moss and mushrooms growing between the sheets. 

[Specmaster]

Tropicalisation was done to it then, they should have used aluminium, fibre or plastic spacers and sealed with silicon or some sort of mastic, apart from the steel disintegrating, it also sets up electrolysis which will slowly corrode the aluminum where it can get access to a cut edge, like holes where the screws / rivets are which will allow the ingress of water more and more.

Was over the entire roof or just the cab area?   

[bd139]

Was the whole roof. It was the same as one of the following. I think the price below is quite frankly silly; I paid £700 for mine as a non runner (all that was up were the plugs were dead)  and added overdrive and changed the wheels and it did me for 4 years. The roof had been repaired by the previous owner after it had a tree fall on it apparently so I reckon the steel spacers got added then.

https://www.landrovercentre.com/product/mve997r/

[tggzzz]

Looking at the Yokogawa label on the back is interesting. All the fasteners are metric so I would suspect it may be a designed and built in Japan. Delicate precise and crafted.

By Comparison the Cambridge boxes are like a Series Three Landrover. Tough Rugged and providing the wiring doesn't catch fire a good thing

This is funny because I had a series three. One fine morning I turned the key in the ignition and the entire loom went up in smoke. Not a big deal. I had a crank, crank started it and drove it to the mech using hand signals!  . Thank god the engine was warm though or it’d had killed me cranking it.

I had a series 2 (not 2A) with a 4.3l Perkins diesel engine, low box, overdrive => 16 forward gears. 24mpg, and 54mph up or down any incline.

For a while it didn't have a fuel gauge; eventually I fitted the cheapest meter I could find, marked in Roentgens/hour. Yup, an atomic Land Rover.

I was once driving into work when I felt a clunk under the seat; fuel tank had partly fallen off, so when I got to work I jacked up the tank and secured it with a bolt.

While overtaking on the A11 in Thetford Forest, the front nearside suddenly dipped - and I saw the wheel through the passenger window. It was perfectly controlled, judging by the narrow steel mark on the road 9" from the edge of the tarmac. I got the AA out, and the only damage was the missing wheel nuts (how??) and a little metal missing from the edge of the brake drum. So I borrowed a nut from each of the other wheels, and continued. I dread to think what would have happened if the wheel had come off next to a shopping area; as it was it just buried itself it the hedge.

Ah, youth.

[bd139]

  it amazes me how many hilarious stories come from Land Rover owners.

An anecdote also from the A11 with a Land Rover: My father had a 1975 Range Rover circa 1981 and we had to go on holiday, something I dreaded back then as it meant seaside resort. Was a two door jobby so by the time we were all in it, there was no room for anything else so he bought a little trailer. Going from Stansted Mountfitchet to Great Yarmouth not much further past Thetford (got stranded there once when I didn’t realise trains ran twice a day but that’s another story) and there was a big thud and some crunching as he went over a dip in the road. Thought nothing of it at the time. Pulled up in Norwich to go for a piss and the trailer and tow bar were gone! It’s the only time I’ve heard my mother swear. Interesting long weekend wearing the same clothes for four days! Fortunately there were just two bags in it.

Probably the same dip/hole 

(It wasn’t a wired trailer and the tow bar had no electrics or they might have noticed)

I think there needs to be a Land Rover thread

[Specmaster]

I must admit, reading the tales here about landrovers, especially with the wheel coming off and trundling away like that reminded of a James Bond (I think) film where a car enters a tunnel and all that comes out is a wheel rolling along  . Strange, I always thought that Landies had a an excellent reliability record but if the experiences out lined here are typical I was misguided. Perhaps you were just unlucky, and received that one rogue car in a batch  .

[bd139]

God no the things were unreliable money pits. The positive side was you could usually bodge something from the bits that had fallen off and lived in a cardboard box in the back to get you to your destination.

I’ve had three in total and they were terrible. Two are still on the road and the oldest, 1976 only went SORN in 2012. They are reliable as far as you can keep fixing them.

The worst I had was the 1988 90 TDi. That blew a hole an inch across in the turbo, lost two wheel bearings and the clutch in under 3 hours. But it still did 75 miles whistling and screeching away like a Vauxhal Nova driven by a dickhead to get me where I wanted to go. Then it consumed £500

Circa 1998 I got fed up of the damn thins and bought a decade old Ford Orion for £50 which had been hit side on by a truck. Even that was far more reliable. Although that broke down in the middle of a nasty bit of Hackney at midnight where some angry people were trying to unload a van full of onions. Even the AA guy was scared.

Land Rover is old HP test gear basically.

[Specmaster]

Maybe Clarkson was about the Brummies and the way they build cars after all.

[mnementh]

I had the roof off mine for the last 3 or 4 years I had it for. People used to ask what happens when it rains? Well DUH you get wet 

I did also have another car too.

Drove mine from SW Vic to Brisbane and back a couple of times. 1400km in a day was the most I did, 2 days before I could walk properly as I am 6'2" so the cab was a little cramped.

Looking at the Yokogawa label on the back is interesting. All the fasteners are metric so I would suspect it may be a designed and built in Japan. Delicate precise and crafted.

By Comparison the Cambridge boxes are like a Series Three Landrover. Tough Rugged and providing the wiring doesn't catch fire a good thing

Those inductors handwound on sewing thread bobbins just make my heart palpitate... remind me of an era when we didn't mind paying a craftsman for his/her craft.

it amazes me how many hilarious stories come from Land Rover owners.

An anecdote also from the A11 with a Land Rover: My father had a 1975 Range Rover circa 1981 and we had to go on holiday, something I dreaded back then as it meant seaside resort. Was a two door jobby so by the time we were all in it, there was no room for anything else so he bought a little trailer. Going from Stansted Mountfitchet to Great Yarmouth not much further past Thetford (got stranded there once when I didn’t realise trains ran twice a day but that’s another story) and there was a big thud and some crunching as he went over a dip in the road. Thought nothing of it at the time. Pulled up in Norwich to go for a piss and the trailer and tow bar were gone! It’s the only time I’ve heard my mother swear. Interesting long weekend wearing the same clothes for four days! Fortunately there were just two bags in it.

Probably the same dip/hole 

(It wasn’t a wired trailer and the tow bar had no electrics or they might have noticed)

I think there needs to be a Land Rover thread

Jeebus... you guyzz are making me homesick for ol' Bertha (My '76 roofless Bronco on 52" boggers) and Pedro (my '52 Willys M38) from when I was a dumb kid...

What the HELL is wrong with me? Those were HORRIBLE vehicles... absolutely uncivilized throwbacks from the dark ages of American iron. They both handled like a refrigerator on a piano dolly and the Jeep had just enough horsepower to outrun a horse... if the horse didn't find level ground.

Smeesh.


mnem
What you drive makes a statement: I prefer one that says "My vehicle is a tool" rather than one which says "I am a tool".

[bd139]

My vehicle now is a tool, for collecting test gear 

SWMBO wants an Audi TT. Now that is a tool car. Her funeral. Then again she is a hair dresser so it’s about right. That or a Suzuki Jimny.

[Specmaster]

My vehicle now is a tool, for collecting test gear 

SWMBO wants an Audi TT. Now that is a tool car. Her funeral. Then again she is a hair dresser so it’s about right. That or a Suzuki Jimny.

Now an Audi TT I can understand but a Suzuki Jimny is surely a bit more butch then a hairdressers car. Something more along the lines a Mazda MX-5, Mini Cabriolet, VW Beetle with plastic flowers on the dash or even a Suzuki Vitara in pink with chrome trim.

[Mr. Scram]

Now an Audi TT I can understand but a Suzuki Jimny is surely a bit more butch then a hairdressers car. Something more along the lines a Mazda MX-5, Mini Cabriolet, VW Beetle with plastic flowers on the dash or even a Suzuki Vitara in pink with chrome trim.

My previous hairdresser drove a Suzuki Jimny. That's the one association I have with that car.

[Specmaster]

Now an Audi TT I can understand but a Suzuki Jimny is surely a bit more butch then a hairdressers car. Something more along the lines a Mazda MX-5, Mini Cabriolet, VW Beetle with plastic flowers on the dash or even a Suzuki Vitara in pink with chrome trim.

My previous hairdresser drove a Suzuki Jimny. That's the one association I have with that car.

Hmm, maybe I got that wrong then 

[bd139]

Suzuki Jimny is good for getting off the middle of the roundabout you drove onto when you were looking at yourself in the mirror rather than the road ahead.

Back on the subject of TEA, I am now designing a GPSDO. I've found a suitable PLL loop (will test this evening with TH parts) and VCTCXO module all for under £15. Need a 1pps GPS module now and to work out how to do footprints in Kicad plus a few hours and it's order time

I am hooked on SMD stuff now. It's so much easier to put together.

[Specmaster]

Interesting, maybe I'll get around trying SMD soon, who knows, perhaps when my new iron arrives. Speaking of which, the handle (which is the wrong one) has arrived in this country but the iron itself, ordered at the same time from the seller still has not arrived. I'm like you the other day, keep checking on the tracking site, I want my iron!

[orin]

Circa 1998 I got fed up of the damn thins and bought a decade old Ford Orion for £50 which had been hit side on by a truck. Even that was far more reliable. Although that broke down in the middle of a nasty bit of Hackney at midnight where some angry people were trying to unload a van full of onions. Even the AA guy was scared.

I used to live on Hackney Downs... I could never get a cab driver to go there unless I said Clapton Pond, then redirected them at the last minute!

[HalFET]

Got dumped today  So to alleviate the feeling I'm planning to buy another source meter 

[tautech]

I'm with mnementh, they were horrible POS. When we were young, dumb and full of cum it didn't matter what we drove as a 2_nd class ride was far better than a 1_st class walk.
We were all mostly OK with a spanner and you needed bugger all else to keep them running, just more parts.
Luckily just down the road lives a Landy wrecker  but he's a bit more as he trained in the Landy factory back in the UK before emigrating here. I sure spent a few $ there. 


Good on some of you for bravely venturing into SMD as once you get your head around it and grab the few tools to make it possible then you'll wonder what held you back.
You don't need much, some smaller tips and maybe a skew/knife tip as you can bridge 2 pads and then sweep SMD passives off. Smart tweezers are a good investment but the good ones cost a bomb but the cheapies will get you by for some time. Hot air at some point makes most rework possible and if you're laying out your own PCB's pay particular attention to layout so to be able to access components for removal/replacement. You can get away from needing paste for small boards....I've got ~1kg of the stuff in the beer fridge that I never use.

[tggzzz]

I must admit, reading the tales here about landrovers, especially with the wheel coming off and trundling away like that reminded of a James Bond (I think) film where a car enters a tunnel and all that comes out is a wheel rolling along  . Strange, I always thought that Landies had a an excellent reliability record but if the experiences out lined here are typical I was misguided. Perhaps you were just unlucky, and received that one rogue car in a batch  .

It was very old and highly modified when I got it, so it isn't a surprise that it needed maintaining. The point was that the maintenance was relatively easy; e.g. the rear lights and drivers seat came from a mini.

I didn't mention that the passenger windscreen wiper failed (there were two independent motors). I checked the MoT regs, which says "windscreen wipers, if fitted, must work". So I simply removed the motor and wiper and it duly passed[1]. That wiper was bugger all use anyway; it was only useful for seeing things that had already gone under the front wheel!

And the engine fell out on a camping trip. Naturally I had the relevant spare engine mount, so I just jacked up the engine and inserted it. The non-standard engine was ridiculously oversized and heavy.

It had a welded up front bumper, from two owners ago. The story was that a white van cut him up on a roundabout, and almost made it. Ripped the side out of the van. Not sure I believe that, but when someone cut me up I caught up with him and very politely asked him if he realised how much damage it would have done to the Land Rover if we had collided. As expected, there was no answer, so after a short pause I said "... absolutely none". Ah, bliss.

[1]Last week I got an MoT for a car which said "rear seat missing". That wasn't strictly true since it was stowed under the driver's seat, and can be reinstated in 30s flat.

[tggzzz]

God no the things were unreliable money pits. The positive side was you could usually bodge something from the bits that had fallen off and lived in a cardboard box in the back to get you to your destination.

Yes to the second part.

I owned mine for a decade, but decided to sell it when I got a kid and it had been off the road for 18 months. The bloke with the low-loader paid me the same as I had paid for it,

Land Rover is old HP test gear basically.

Not a bad analogy!

[tggzzz]

Suzuki Jimny is good for getting off the middle of the roundabout you drove onto when you were looking at yourself in the mirror rather than the road ahead.

When I was driving the Land Rover, nobody dared give me directions including "go straight over at the next roundabout". They knew my eyes would light up with a red glow.

[Mr. Scram]

When I was driving the Land Rover, nobody dared give me directions including "go straight over at the next roundabout". They knew my eyes would light up with a red glow.

Or they looked at you and instantly knew that you don't own a mirror.

[Specmaster]

Suzuki Jimny is good for getting off the middle of the roundabout you drove onto when you were looking at yourself in the mirror rather than the road ahead.

When I was driving the Land Rover, nobody dared give me directions including "go straight over at the next roundabout". They knew my eyes would light up with a red glow.

That was the glow of the car in front of you was stopping [emoji28]