Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Great news about your T12, still no news about mine. 

Postie comic is true to life, many a postie has dumped mail before and also opened them to see what they can find. The last picture really made me laugh though 

[bd139]

Good news comes with bad news. Never fall asleep with your MacBook on your lap. Hit the floor. Screen has popped 

Well that one lasted 4 years.

[Specmaster]

Can you get a new screen and fit it or are the tales about the lack of parts true?

[bd139]

Parts are easy enough to get hold of. Looks to be around £350 for the whole bonded lid assembly. Not terrible effort to replace but an inconvenience.

Top left still works fine - enough to kick off a backup onto external media 

I have two spare machines, including a 2011 MBP and a Thinkpad T440 so not end of world. This was just the nicest one

[Specmaster]

Don't they use iCloud to automatically back up then?

[Mr. Scram]

Good news comes with bad news. Never fall asleep with your MacBook on your lap. Hit the floor. Screen has popped 

Well that one lasted 4 years.

That sucks. Not exactly the cheapest hardware either. I mean, that costs almost two haircuts to replace.

[bitseeker]

I mean, that costs almost two haircuts to replace.

 

[bd139]

Don't they use iCloud to automatically back up then?

You can set that up but I have 150Gb of stuff and a shitty 1.2 meg upload line so hardly worth it. I use time machine which is a full differential incremental system backup to external disk. Just plug the disk into a new one and do the restore and carry on.

Good news comes with bad news. Never fall asleep with your MacBook on your lap. Hit the floor. Screen has popped 

Well that one lasted 4 years.

That sucks. Not exactly the cheapest hardware either. I mean, that costs almost two haircuts to replace.

Hahaha that’s a good way to explain the sudden cost to SWMBO.

I’m actually just considering losing it on eBay and buying another one. It’ll still go for £600 which I can chuck at a new one. It’s getting towards EOL so I’m not sure repairing it is worth it. Might be for someone else but it might blow up the week after you repair it. Then the cost is unknown.

Big problem this is seriously hurting my TEA budget!

[Specmaster]

Well if you cant get it as 2 haircuts, then it becomes an emergency budget, not TEA budget 

[Berni]

Well if you cant get it as 2 haircuts, then it becomes an emergency budget, not TEA budget 

Our judgement of budget can get pretty clouded when you see a nice piece of gear that's normally really expensive going for just slightly expensive on the'ol ebay. Besides im sure i can fix that single selftest error code that its throwing....i hope.

[beanflying]

Over TEA for the day. Serious other work to be done 

[Specmaster]

Well if you cant get it as 2 haircuts, then it becomes an emergency budget, not TEA budget 

Our judgement of budget can get pretty clouded when you see a nice piece of gear that's normally really expensive going for just slightly expensive on the'ol ebay. Besides im sure i can fix that single selftest error code that its throwing....i hope.

Exactly sir [emoji23]

[bd139]

Indeed. I’m weighing up “buy new screen” or “meh use an i5 and windows for a bit and get that nice HP 8640”.  https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253352856659

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

So I have some more info on my HP 8657A. The post office received it for sorting today and it should be at my door tomorrow.
The unfortunate and confusing part is the import cost. I was aware I would have to pay import, and I was always told it was 21% of the price you payed + 12 EUR administrative costs. I payed 200 USD for the signal generator, which is about 168 EUR. 21% of that is about 35 EUR. Add 12 EUR admin. costs and I'm looking at just shy of 50 euros import. But they are charging me 97 euros! that is twice as much as the cost I calculate!

I will pay up because well, I have to, but I want to know more details about this. As I was planning on purchasing some other stuff of ebay in the future that is worth a significantly larger sum, I don' t want to be surprised with higher import charges there as well.

Anyone know where I went wrong in my ball-park estimate that turned out to be only half of the actual import cost?

[Berni]

Indeed. I’m weighing up “buy new screen” or “meh use an i5 and windows for a bit and get that nice HP 8640”.  https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253352856659

I have the opposite problem.

My screen works fine but my RF signal generator refuses to give me anything above -50dBm, i think the relay attenuation in it got stuck again.

[Specmaster]

Indeed. I’m weighing up “buy new screen” or “meh use an i5 and windows for a bit and get that nice HP 8640”.  https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253352856659

That's a nice one, I'd love it as well but a bit pricey for my budget and also too big for bench. [emoji52]

[bd139]

Indeed. I’m weighing up “buy new screen” or “meh use an i5 and windows for a bit and get that nice HP 8640”.  https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253352856659

I have the opposite problem.

My screen works fine but my RF signal generator refuses to give me anything above -50dBm, i think the relay attenuation in it got stuck again.

That always seems to happen with RF gens. I had a Marconi 2019A and that came with two entire attenuators assemblies in a supermarket carrier bag with it. The guy said “you’ll be needed them”. I did!

Indeed. I’m weighing up “buy new screen” or “meh use an i5 and windows for a bit and get that nice HP 8640”.  https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253352856659

That's a nice one, I'd love it as well but a bit pricey for my budget and also too big for bench. [emoji52]

I have the same problem as well at the moment.  However I’m going to sell my DG1022Z which is a buggy piece of crap and grab a TTi function generator and hopefully that instead. Space I shall worry about later.

On another note, looks like house move may be falling through FFS. Some chump up the chain has been bankrupted. 

[Specmaster]

Indeed. I’m weighing up “buy new screen” or “meh use an i5 and windows for a bit and get that nice HP 8640”.  https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253352856659

I have the opposite problem.

My screen works fine but my RF signal generator refuses to give me anything above -50dBm, i think the relay attenuation in it got stuck again.

That always seems to happen with RF gens. I had a Marconi 2019A and that came with two entire attenuators assemblies in a supermarket carrier bag with it. The guy said “you’ll be needed them”. I did!

Indeed. I’m weighing up “buy new screen” or “meh use an i5 and windows for a bit and get that nice HP 8640”.  https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253352856659

That's a nice one, I'd love it as well but a bit pricey for my budget and also too big for bench. [emoji52]

I have the same problem as well at the moment.  However I’m going to sell my DG1022Z which is a buggy piece of crap and grab a TTi function generator and hopefully that instead. Space I shall worry about later.

On another note, looks like house move may be falling through FFS. Some chump up the chain has been bankrupted.

Oh ffing hell, WTF was he thinking about, he must have known that he couldn't afford it and that he had this hanging over his head.

[bd139]

Yes. Idiots be everywere. I think he was downsizing. But a bit late. Lots of people have had their properties on the market for a couple of years with no buyers in London. I managed to knock the seller of our new one down by £40k because they hadn’t sold for 18 months and they had moved to Australia and were renting it out because they couldn’t sell it before they went.

Plenty of bargains to be had.

If only TEA fix prices were as negotiable

[Specmaster]

Yes. Idiots be everywere. I think he was downsizing. But a bit late. Lots of people have had their properties on the market for a couple of years with no buyers in London. I managed to knock the seller of our new one down by £40k because they hadn’t sold for 18 months and they had moved to Australia and were renting it out because they couldn’t sell it before they went.

Plenty of bargains to be had.

If only TEA fix prices were as negotiable

Yep, that TTi 1604 went for £28 but I fell asleep and missed it [emoji52]

[bd139]

That was a bit high for an end price. A working 1705 can go for as low as £50.

TTi won’t issue service info for it either past “return to base for repair”. Nothing repairable in them these days  either.  I’d pay good money for something not disposable.

[Specmaster]

I knew that, but I was working on it being a power supply issue and thought if it was that I bypass their supply if not fixable and add my own. So maybe it was a good job I fell asleep after all

[ChrisLX200]

Parts are easy enough to get hold of. Looks to be around £350 for the whole bonded lid assembly. Not terrible effort to replace but an inconvenience.

Top left still works fine - enough to kick off a backup onto external media 

I have two spare machines, including a 2011 MBP and a Thinkpad T440 so not end of world. This was just the nicest one

Does it still work with an external monitor attached?

[bd139]

I knew that, but I was working on it being a power supply issue and thought if it was that I bypass their supply if not fixable and add my own. So maybe it was a good job I fell asleep after all

Might have been worth a punt at £20. Worst case you could have just listed it again as spares / repair 

Parts are easy enough to get hold of. Looks to be around £350 for the whole bonded lid assembly. Not terrible effort to replace but an inconvenience.

Top left still works fine - enough to kick off a backup onto external media 

I have two spare machines, including a 2011 MBP and a Thinkpad T440 so not end of world. This was just the nicest one

Does it still work with an external monitor attached?

It does. This is just a fecked panel. It is cracked right down the middle. Will sort a new one out at some point. I am not overly fussed really. I thought I’d be devastated by such a fuck up but nothing happened. This might be because I really just hate computers (even though it’s the day job) and am slightly happy to see one getting battered. Meh.

[bd139]

Woohoo! Now if only I had the time today to actually even open it