Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Fluke 45 shipped, on the way today - signature required. 

That's not the one that mnementh failed to bid on is it?

[xrunner]

That's not the one that mnementh failed to bid on is it?

Nope, it's another one. It's pretty clean anyway though, and shows to be working fine in the pics. I'll do a minor clean up when I get it and hopefully will add a nice blueish glow to the lab. 

[beanflying]

I have been eyeing off a Solartron 7081, a blue tinge would be nice 

[xrunner]

I have been eyeing off a Solartron 7081, a blue tinge would be nice 

Well until then you can have this -

[neo]

Speaking of vacuum fluorescent displays, i recently bought a desk clock with that as its display.
I find it a bit amusing that it proudly states "solid state" when it's display is by technicality a vacuum tube.

Can clocks be counted as TEA? 

[mnementh]

As a punisher of LiPo batteries I am yet to see one actually catch fire in the flesh. I have seen a couple vent and smoke after severe R/C crashes (200+km/hr). I have managed to puff plenty of the earlier ones in particular and a couple of 6S 5000 mAH ones in my big Heli's due to the peak currents involved. Dead shorts and over voltage charger protection are the main reasons for them going on fire. Plenty of Lead acid caused fires in Vehicles over time in particular British wired ones

Puffed ones btw still work but I don't use them for R/C.

Ebay buying with 10-20% off spending to much ........

Indeed dead shorts was the cause for the recent Samsung Galaxy Note phones catching fire which Samsung say was down to a batch of faulty batteries from one of their suppliers, which we shall have to take as gospel but you have ask, if that is the case then why did they remove the phone from sale and drop the range altogether??? Who knows or cares as long as they resolved the issue which they did in very short time as well and to my knowledge, that was the only time that they actively nobbled the battery management of the phone to prevent it being over charged and also preventing it from getting to flat to reduce heat rise during the recharging period.

I took advantage of the Ebay discount too, it was a nice surprise I thought. 

I have personally witlessed 4 LiPo fires; 2 that died on my charger and 2 that died in the air. The two that died on the charger were both ones that were over-discharged and did not recover, but rather died on the charging tile. The other two were sacrifices to the Gods of Speed; both race quads being pushed very hard and deliberately overpropped for top-end. Only one of them was mine, though.


The Samsung flaming battery was out & out a design flaw; they didn't allow enough space for expansion and the batteries self-ruptured as a result.


Really annoyed I didn't get a similar discount on my own fleaBay... 


mnem
*Cultivating my own vacuum garden*

[beanflying]

Much as I have always used Schulz or Hyperion chargers the couple of LiPo's I have over discharged I hooked them up to a power supply and just tickled them back to over 3V per cell at 50mA. Similar for my ESC's on the performance gear never used cheap and cheerful ones and those on my fun stuff has ever been a problem.

[djos]

As a punisher of LiPo batteries I am yet to see one actually catch fire in the flesh. I have seen a couple vent and smoke after severe R/C crashes (200+km/hr). I have managed to puff plenty of the earlier ones in particular and a couple of 6S 5000 mAH ones in my big Heli's due to the peak currents involved. Dead shorts and over voltage charger protection are the main reasons for them going on fire. Plenty of Lead acid caused fires in Vehicles over time in particular British wired ones

Puffed ones btw still work but I don't use them for R/C.

Ebay buying with 10-20% off spending to much ........

Indeed dead shorts was the cause for the recent Samsung Galaxy Note phones catching fire which Samsung say was down to a batch of faulty batteries from one of their suppliers, which we shall have to take as gospel but you have ask, if that is the case then why did they remove the phone from sale and drop the range altogether??? Who knows or cares as long as they resolved the issue which they did in very short time as well and to my knowledge, that was the only time that they actively nobbled the battery management of the phone to prevent it being over charged and also preventing it from getting to flat to reduce heat rise during the recharging period.

I took advantage of the Ebay discount too, it was a nice surprise I thought. 

While they did have some issues with a batch of batteries, I read the published report which concluded the main issue was not enough room in the case to account for thermal expansion of the batteries which then resulted in battery failures which were then exacerbated by the batch of defective batteries. The latter caught fire and many others suffered overheating which then caused an other wise healthy battery to fall.

Iirc there was one particular pinch point in the phone that did all the damage.

[mnementh]

Much as I have always used Schulz or Hyperion chargers the couple of LiPo's I have over discharged I hooked them up to a power supply and just tickled them back to over 3V per cell at 50mA. Similar for my ESC's on the performance gear never used cheap and cheerful ones and those on my fun stuff has ever been a problem.

Naaahhh, there's no voodoo involved; they'll always come back up if you bring them up right away. It's the first high-rate charge or discharge AFTER that kills 'em; once the damage is done, they're dead cells walkin'. I prefer to have them die on the slab rather than in an aircraft where they can cause personal or property damage, so I try to make sure that is on my charger. If they survive a 1C charge/discharge cycle, after that I do high-rate charge/discharge/charge cycle before I put 'em in an aircraft.

I don't fly puffy cells either.


mnem
*Fuel*

[beanflying]

Not much risk of a Lipo fire with this one 

[Specmaster]

Speaking of vacuum fluorescent displays, i recently bought a desk clock with that as its display.
I find it a bit amusing that it proudly states "solid state" when it's display is by technicality a vacuum tube.

Can clocks be counted as TEA? 

Arh  yes, they were fashionable once upon a time and the rest of the clock was solid state. I have a Casio time calculator somewhere that was the same.

[Specmaster]

As a punisher of LiPo batteries I am yet to see one actually catch fire in the flesh. I have seen a couple vent and smoke after severe R/C crashes (200+km/hr). I have managed to puff plenty of the earlier ones in particular and a couple of 6S 5000 mAH ones in my big Heli's due to the peak currents involved. Dead shorts and over voltage charger protection are the main reasons for them going on fire. Plenty of Lead acid caused fires in Vehicles over time in particular British wired ones

Puffed ones btw still work but I don't use them for R/C.

Ebay buying with 10-20% off spending to much ........

Indeed dead shorts was the cause for the recent Samsung Galaxy Note phones catching fire which Samsung say was down to a batch of faulty batteries from one of their suppliers, which we shall have to take as gospel but you have ask, if that is the case then why did they remove the phone from sale and drop the range altogether??? Who knows or cares as long as they resolved the issue which they did in very short time as well and to my knowledge, that was the only time that they actively nobbled the battery management of the phone to prevent it being over charged and also preventing it from getting to flat to reduce heat rise during the recharging period.

I took advantage of the Ebay discount too, it was a nice surprise I thought. 

While they did have some issues with a batch of batteries, I read the published report which concluded the main issue was not enough room in the case to account for thermal expansion of the batteries which then resulted in battery failures which were then exacerbated by the batch of defective batteries. The latter caught fire and many others suffered overheating which then caused an other wise healthy battery to fall.

Iirc there was one particular pinch point in the phone that did all the damage.

Yes you are correct I think, I read an extract of the report where they said that in area the batteries had some sharp shards and that when pressure was applied these punctured the internal plates and caused short circuits. I just assumed that it was due to either a pressure point in the phone or when the phone had some pressure applied to it such as being in back pocket and bending slightly.  Either way you can assume the cost to cure it was to great because I believe it was withdrawn from sale.

[Mr. Scram]

Indeed dead shorts was the cause for the recent Samsung Galaxy Note phones catching fire which Samsung say was down to a batch of faulty batteries from one of their suppliers, which we shall have to take as gospel but you have ask, if that is the case then why did they remove the phone from sale and drop the range altogether??? Who knows or cares as long as they resolved the issue which they did in very short time as well and to my knowledge, that was the only time that they actively nobbled the battery management of the phone to prevent it being over charged and also preventing it from getting to flat to reduce heat rise during the recharging period.

I took advantage of the Ebay discount too, it was a nice surprise I thought. 

I think they tried to fix the issue once, had issues again and decided the phone wasn't viable any more from a market perspective. Even if the technology was sorted out and the best ever, the model was tainted and would likely never sell well again. They opted to cut their losses and also avoided risking any further PR damage that way.

They did in fact later release a renamed 7R model, which was just a Note 7 with a fixed and lower capacity battery. They probably did this to get rid of stock and recoup some of what was lost.

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/samsung/samsung-galaxy-note-7/23156/samsung-galaxy-note-7r-release-date

[Specmaster]

Indeed dead shorts was the cause for the recent Samsung Galaxy Note phones catching fire which Samsung say was down to a batch of faulty batteries from one of their suppliers, which we shall have to take as gospel but you have ask, if that is the case then why did they remove the phone from sale and drop the range altogether??? Who knows or cares as long as they resolved the issue which they did in very short time as well and to my knowledge, that was the only time that they actively nobbled the battery management of the phone to prevent it being over charged and also preventing it from getting to flat to reduce heat rise during the recharging period.

I took advantage of the Ebay discount too, it was a nice surprise I thought. 

I think they tried to fix the issue once, had issues again and decided the phone wasn't viable any more from a market perspective. Even if the technology was sorted out and the best ever, the model was tainted and would likely never sell well again. They opted to cut their losses and also avoided risking any further PR damage that way.

They did in fact later release a renamed 7R model, which was just a Note 7 with a fixed and lower capacity battery. They probably did this to get rid of stock and recoup some of what was lost.

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/samsung/samsung-galaxy-note-7/23156/samsung-galaxy-note-7r-release-date

That makes sense 

[Specmaster]

The size of the enclosure on the Quicko T12-952 iron certainly has changed but I'm not sure if I got an early one or a later model but here are the photos of the insides and the first one is the version I have and you'll see how the there is no free space and the PSU is the same in both photos.




This is the photo that is current displayed on the vendor's web page of the supposedly the same model.

[bd139]

That certainly looks like a healthier space in there 

[Specmaster]

That certainly looks like a healthier space in there 

Yes and the IEC socket is only soldered to the PCB by the tips of the tags, on mine all the tag is overlapped on the PCB and soldered so the case is certainly longer and notice to earth cable, although it does not look as if there is any connection to the ground pad next to the neutral pad, at least I don't see it.

[bd139]

I’ll order one when this one turns up and let you know if they have changed it or not. I want to make sure i understand how it all works before I invest any more.

I’m slightly excited really because I was trying to fill a board with the weller yesterday and it was difficult. Need a blade tip really which you can’t get for the TCP. There are 93 SMD parts on these boards and they take approx 1.5 hours each to fill by hand and test which is doing me in. Reckon I can blast the larger packages with the T12.  Need to do one more turnaround I reckon before I have not screwed up this design

Interestingly the Kicad “hand soldering” foorprints are harder to solder by hand than the normal ones. Grr.

Going to have to shelve TEA for a bit as I’m doing RSGB foundation then intermediate then advanced stuff. Might be quiet for a few weeks. However the result will result in more TEA! 

[Specmaster]

I’ll order one when this one turns up and let you know if they have changed it or not. I want to make sure i understand how it all works before I invest any more.

I’m slightly excited really because I was trying to fill a board with the weller yesterday and it was difficult. Need a blade tip really which you can’t get for the TCP. There are 93 SMD parts on these boards and they take approx 1.5 hours each to fill by hand and test which is doing me in. Reckon I can blast the larger packages with the T12.  Need to do one more turnaround I reckon before I have not screwed up this design

Interestingly the Kicad “hand soldering” foorprints are harder to solder by hand than the normal ones. Grr.

Going to have to shelve TEA for a bit as I’m doing RSGB foundation then intermediate then advanced stuff. Might be quiet for a few weeks. However the result will result in more TEA! 

There are a few blade tips in the T12 also a curved one that a lot of the bloggers seem to use for smd work.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I have been eyeing off a Solartron 7081, a blue tinge would be nice 

Well until then you can have this -

Someone needs to invent a Cherenkov display! The one true beautiful blue!

[mnementh]

Not much risk of a Lipo fire with this one 

I love the Vapor... have 2 1/2 of them from my days with Texas RC Indoor Club. Slow, high Q flying is ideal for close spaces like gyms and warehouses, especially when you have to share that space with others. Not that impressed with the FPVapor... the video is atrocious compared to even my cheapest Tiny Whoop clones. Next time I break one of them out, I'll probably upgrade with a 2.2 gram All-in-one Cam/VTX and some of the 120mAH HV cells I'm already flying on my Whoops.





mnem
*Juicy*

[HalFET]

I have been eyeing off a Solartron 7081, a blue tinge would be nice 

Well until then you can have this -

Someone needs to invent a Cherenkov display! The one true beautiful blue!

Can I have a nuclear reactor, a few 1000L of helium, and some steel piping and a few square meter of leaded glass?

[bd139]

Don’t forget the medical team and decontamination and experts at denial shipped in from japan.

[tautech]

There are a few blade tips in the T12 also a curved one that a lot of the bloggers seem to use for smd work.

Get too many tips and you'll spend more time changing them than soldering.
A 2.4mm chisel or hoof will do most bench soldering excepting real tiny SMD stuff.

If you can't access normal SMD components with them, then some A-hole hasn't laid the PCB out for hand soldering or rework. 

[HalFET]

Don’t forget the medical team and decontamination and experts at denial shipped in from japan.

Well, it'd be reasonably doable if you'd be able to build plasma windows. (No idea how to make those though.) But you only need to get an electron up to +/-0.8 c and shoot it at a water capsule, it'd only take about 150 kV over a distance of 30 cm if my brain still operates reasonably well at this time of day.