Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cubdriver]

    Yeah, I had a chuckle when just after posting about how rare they were, that popped up in my feed.  Someone got it, but it wasn't me.  I just couldn't bring myself to pay nearly what I did for the whole instrument for the input box.  Maybe another will pop up in 2019.

-Pat

'Someone' had to spend some of his hard earned Doughnut dough somewhere so it might as well have gone on TEA

Only one more box to go 

I started to cost up the bits to make them from scratch and $100USD was dissapearing quickly per box.

I guess that's a good way to justify it!  Well done!   

(Dammit, why didn't *I* think to look at it that way?!?)      

-Pat

[beanflying]

A big chunk of the cost was in new 1000vDC plugs and sockets. My current thoughts are toward breaking the cable before the box adding a high voltage plug and socket and building the second box to connect to the stock cable and plug.

It would save having to mod the case and if the other one ever turned up the only non standard thing left would be a plug in one of the lines.

I need to find a bit of time to do a thread on my Quadtech Milliohm meter and the Russian Decade box and it makes sense to have a 740a&B thread if there isn't one already so external and internal shots of both boxes?

[mnementh]

This is why Gixen.com is your friend. You can even get a 10-day sub to their mirror service for $1 now, which you guys in the UK may need for reliable service. I haven't needed it yet; I live in the US and rarely lose a snipe other than the item just going crazy high. I just won 4 iPod Nanos for $6 and change.


Cheers,


mnem
Level the playing field. Use Gixen.com

Level the playing field. Don't use Gixen. Sniping ruins the eBay fun.

I'll keep sniping (though I do it manually).  Paying more than I have to for something is not my idea of eBay 'fun'.

-Pat

I agree, way pay more than necessary for something, especially with a lot of ebay sellers, it might turn out to be a turd with no return.

Ummm... these statements seem a little contradictory to the idea of a sniping service like gix. The whole point is you give gix your maximum bid, and it bids the absolute minimum bid increments for you in the last 30 seconds of the auction to maximize your chances of winning a bidding war. I've won auctions where gix placed a dozen bids in 30¢, 50¢, $1.00, etc  increments in the last 10 seconds of an auction. It bids until the instant the auction closes or it reaches your maximum bid. Unlike eBay proxy, which bids as soon as someone else raises the bid.

THAT is what I call "not paying a penny more than you have to"; and if you are serious about getting something, you need to use the same tools as the professionals or you are deliberately setting yourself up to fail.


mnem
"SPOOON!"

[bitseeker]

WTF just happened, I was watching a HP 3466A on fleabay and 10 seconds to go, put my bid in, away it went with 5 seconds to spare and then I got a message about more ways to get what I want, check the listing again and it went for over £5 LESS than what my bid was 

Has some one found a way of slowing everyone's timer so that they bid after the event? 

Were you using the mobile app or the web site? It's just anecdotal, but I experienced clock sync issues that were similarly egregious when sniping via mobile app. Since then, I only bid via web site and haven't had problems within 3-4 seconds of closing. It is rather dangerous during the last few seconds as page loading can be very slow if there are many snipers.

[bitseeker]

I started to cost up the bits to make them from scratch and $100USD was dissapearing quickly per box.

Dammit, why didn't *I* think to look at it that way?!?      

That's why we have this "support" thread. Good work y'all!

[beanflying]

Unless you won't be awake or available then I don't see sniper bids as having any point. If it's something you want go hard go late and if you lose you weren't serious in the first place 

[Specmaster]

WTF just happened, I was watching a HP 3466A on fleabay and 10 seconds to go, put my bid in, away it went with 5 seconds to spare and then I got a message about more ways to get what I want, check the listing again and it went for over £5 LESS than what my bid was 

Has some one found a way of slowing everyone's timer so that they bid after the event? 

Were you using the mobile app or the web site? It's just anecdotal, but I experienced clock sync issues that were similarly egregious when sniping via mobile app. Since then, I only bid via web site and haven't had problems within 3-4 seconds of closing. It is rather dangerous during the last few seconds as page loading can be very slow if there are many snipers.

I was at home on the desktop, so Web it was , but that was the first time I have experienced  that, I guess it was the other UK TEA folk snipping that caused it crash out, in which case it wasn't to bad I guess.

[flolic]

I also have one of the new KSGER V2.1 1.3" OLED T12 controllers on the way; it's supposed to ALSO have Vacuum Desolder and Hot Air optional menus as well, plus coin-cell backup for your personal settings. I'll let you know what I think of the quality of the parts that come with this kit as well. I know... I have a problem.   





In all honesty, I really like the looks of the KSGER aluminum shells; they scream quality with CNC recessed bezel and knob, stainless hex fasteners and flush lens... if they only weren't also completely Mentel. I mean... not that it isn't true... I just don't feel the need to advertise it. 



mnem
There is always room for eye scream.

KSGER also makes not so Mentel  front bezel in black color.
I have their station with STM32 2.1S OLED controller and can only recommend it 

[Specmaster]

KSGER also makes not so Mentel  front bezel in black color.
I have their station with STM32 2.1S OLED controller and can only recommend it 

Yes that one is very similar to the Quicko one I have in terms of the clarity and brightness of the display. To be honest, there is really nothing between any of these T12 system that we have mentioned on here and its really nit picking to to put one above another but I suppose at the end of the day we as humans will always have a preference for one over another. I expect that in terms of performance in real world pure soldering there is going to be very little difference between any of them unless one has a really small power supply, they all have one common performance factor that works against then and that is going to the plug/socket and the cable between the station and the actual iron, as they are all the same.

So objectively the only real differences that we can make judgements on is going to be the aesthetics and the feature set the controller offers and its interface. I personally don't like plastic cases, metal ones help to dissipate heat from the power supply during long and heavy use but they do also represent earthing problems from a safety point of view. 

[mnementh]

Unless you won't be awake or available then I don't see sniper bids as having any point. If it's something you want go hard go late and if you lose you weren't serious in the first place 

That's the whole point here, isn't it? We're all in the "saving boat anchors for posterity" boat, but a huge part of that is we can't justify the cost of state-of-the-art equipment for our home/hobbyist workbench. That is part being frugal, part being realistic, and part just plain being skint. Not having enough discretionary fundage to outbid a fleaBay feeding frenzy doesn't make one "not serious"; it just makes one not an imbecile who spends the house payment on broken gear.

Not that I've EVER done anything like THAT... *coughHomeTheatercough* 

KSGER also makes not so Mentel  front bezel in black color.
I have their station with STM32 2.1S OLED controller and can only recommend it 

Yeah, I just don't like the brick-style case in general, that's all. I also notice they have the "Mentel case"  in black and gold; as this is coming from AliEx, I have a sneaking suspicion that which one you get is a lot of the time a matter of what they have on hand rather than the content of the pictures. As evidenced by the fact that yours came with black shell and face, but silver knob.

I suspect that the KSGER Store is a spinoff of the Xiao Wu Tool Store ; the store has been around a lot longer, and everything about the layout is virtually identical. They were the vendor in one of my first purchases from Alibaba/AliEx years ago when I was testing the waters.

      


Something I discovered while looking over their store for the STM32 V2.01S controller was this little gem for only $16; seems like a LOT of bang for the buck if you want to build a portable version of this iron.

I'm eyeing it to either go with some reclaimed 2600mAH laptop 18650 cells or one of the 1.5AH/6S packs for my Lowes/Kobalt drill set that only costs $10; I've busted up a half-dozen of them and they have decent quality 18A discharge rated 18650 cells inside. You get almost 2000mAH out of them if you keep the discharge rate below 2C as well; I even modded a socket under the dash of my kids' Power Wheels to run it off of these packs, as they have built-in ODC/LVC protection.



Something else I noticed that I recall folks asking about is the GX12 mini-aircraft style connectors these use... they have them in 2-pin to 7-pin variants for ~$1.00 each pair, but you have to buy Qty 5 to get them for that price. I know... just heartbreaking.



Cheers,


mnem
How do I get this thing out of second gear?!?

[mnementh]

Hmmm... AliEx sent me a eMail telling me I had a $4 coupon on my primary account, so I went looking for a couple of the better 907 adapter PCBs as shown by Specmaster earlier in the thread. I found them at JimBonStore for $1.99 and while I was there I got another ILS tip. Total for 2 PCBs and 1 T12-ILS tip even after I sprung for the ePacket shipping, was $6.11. Not too bad. 

I figure I'll build up two of the horrible 907 handles I have as leftover parts to keep as spares or for use in cases where the slightly longer reach is an asset rather than an annoyance.

mnem
Press [button] to drop back & punt.

[Specmaster]

Unless you won't be awake or available then I don't see sniper bids as having any point. If it's something you want go hard go late and if you lose you weren't serious in the first place 

That's the whole point here, isn't it? We're all in the "saving boat anchors for posterity" boat, but a huge part of that is we can't justify the cost of state-of-the-art equipment for our home/hobbyist workbench. That is part being frugal, part being realistic, and part just plain being skint. Not having enough discretionary fundage to outbid a fleaBay feeding frenzy doesn't make one "not serious"; it just makes one not an imbecile who spends the house payment on broken gear.

Not that I've EVER done anything like THAT... *coughHomeTheatercough* 

KSGER also makes not so Mentel  front bezel in black color.
I have their station with STM32 2.1S OLED controller and can only recommend it 

Yeah, I just don't like the brick-style case in general, that's all. I also notice they have the "Mentel case"  in black and gold; as this is coming from AliEx, I have a sneaking suspicion that which one you get is a lot of the time a matter of what they have on hand rather than the content of the pictures. As evidenced by the fact that yours came with black shell and face, but silver knob.

I suspect that the KSGER Store is a spinoff of the Xiao Wu Tool Store ; the store has been around a lot longer, and everything about the layout is virtually identical. They were the vendor in one of my first purchases from Alibaba/AliEx years ago when I was testing the waters.

      


Something I discovered while looking over their store for the STM32 V2.01S controller was this little gem for only $16; seems like a LOT of bang for the buck if you want to build a portable version of this iron.

I'm eyeing it to either go with some reclaimed 2600mAH laptop 18650 cells or one of the 1.5AH/6S packs for my Lowes/Kobalt drill set that only costs $10; I've busted up a half-dozen of them and they have decent quality 18A discharge rated 18650 cells inside. You get almost 2000mAH out of them if you keep the discharge rate below 2C as well; I even modded a socket under the dash of my kids' Power Wheels to run it off of these packs, as they have built-in ODC/LVC protection.



Something else I noticed that I recall folks asking about is the GX12 mini-aircraft style connectors these use... they have them in 2-pin to 7-pin variants for ~$1.00 each pair, but you have to buy Qty 5 to get them for that price. I know... just heartbreaking.



Cheers,


mnem
How do I get this thing out of second gear?!?

Haha, don’t tell me that you have a bubble car! I had one back in the 80’s, quite good fun to drive it was too.

You know the more I look, the more I think that the T12 in the hands of the Chinese is a good thing because they do seems to be have been for more innovative then Hakko have been and are pushing it into the hands of more and more people and developing it even further and with a little bit more attention to the finer details they could really become a major competitor to the top brands.

I mean take a look at the picture of the 3 face plates, they are so obviously using at least 2 types of controllers because the control and display locations on the top 2 are different to the bottom one and that the “Mental Soldering Station” has different spacing’s on each of the faceplates. The bottom plate also has a far larger display window.

As for those GX12’s, well I might be forced into getting some of those for other uses as well, certainly can’t grumble about those prices.

[Specmaster]

Hmmm... AliEx sent me a eMail telling me I had a $4 coupon on my primary account, so I went looking for a couple of the better 907 adapter PCBs as shown by Specmaster earlier in the thread. I found them at JimBonStore for $1.99 and while I was there I got another ILS tip. Total for 2 PCBs and 1 T12-ILS tip even after I sprung for the ePacket shipping, was $6.11. Not too bad. 

I figure I'll build up two of the horrible 907 handles I have as leftover parts to keep as spares or for use in cases where the slightly longer reach is an asset rather than an annoyance.

mnem
Press [button] to drop back & punt.

Precisely my thoughts and as I have been using a 907 handle on my other station before you introduced me to the T12, I'm quite happy to use them anyway. So I had already ordered a further 907 handle with a 5 pin GX12 fitted so that I'll have a 907 handle set for both the 4 and 5 pin stations for as you put it, "where the slightly longer reach is an asset rather than an annoyance" occasions . Hmm having a slightly longer reach has never caused me any problems on occasions, that extra reach comes in rather handy cough 

[beanflying]

Speaking of expensive boat anchors this has some appeal to go with the recent DC HP toy 

[neo]

The united states postal system seems to have lost my 3312A, at least temporarily. 

[AF6LJ]

Speaking of expensive boat anchors this has some appeal to go with the recent DC HP toy 

In a word...........

NICE

[/color][/size]

[Cubdriver]

Sweet, beanflying!  That looks quite anchor-like!  . Nice score!

-Pat

[Vgkid]

Speaking of expensive boat anchors this has some appeal to go with the recent DC HP toy 

I look forward to seeing the teardown. Another brand of orphaned T&M gear.
I had that on my watch list for a long time , the shipping (and their cost were a killer) :/ .

[beanflying]

This one I was just 'looking at' fairly sure it is 110VAC only so to hard for those of us with 'proper' voltage but it is a big anchor 

All yours USA TEA 

[mnementh]

(SNIP)
Cheers,


mnem
How do I get this thing out of second gear?!?

Haha, don’t tell me that you have a bubble car! I had one back in the 80’s, quite good fun to drive it was too.

You know the more I look, the more I think that the T12 in the hands of the Chinese is a good thing because they do seems to be have been for more innovative then Hakko have been and are pushing it into the hands of more and more people and developing it even further and with a little bit more attention to the finer details they could really become a major competitor to the top brands.

I mean take a look at the picture of the 3 face plates, they are so obviously using at least 2 types of controllers because the control and display locations on the top 2 are different to the bottom one and that the “Mental Soldering Station” has different spacing’s on each of the faceplates. The bottom plate also has a far larger display window.

As for those GX12’s, well I might be forced into getting some of those for other uses as well, certainly can’t grumble about those prices.

   


I had a '63 Rambler in powder blue (I think they ALL were made in that color that year) as a teen... I wish mine was anywhere near as nice as Hollywood Bob's example there. Then several of the Japanese "Bubble car", the first-gen Honda Civic in yellow, green and blue. Both had similar performance characteristics, with the Hondas having something that could actually be called "handling". The Rambler was like driving a wet noodle at highway speeds.

I agree... the T12 soldering cartridge was an awesome idea by Hakko; no quibbles there. But their close relationship with mass-production manufacturing (who, due to the hassle of re-vetting specifications, tend to HATE anything resembling product evolution) has really hampered their value to the general hobbyist/repair sector due to downright abusive firmwares and control layout.

I think Hakk0 has done a LOT more to advance the technology than Hakko ever did... and you can STILL buy genuine Hakko cartridges for the ones you use all the time, thereby having the better performance while still maintaining the bang/buck ratio.

Not sure about what you're saying with the faceplates... looks like the same faceplate only appearing slightly different due to parallax and vanishing point perspective. KSGER DOES appear to make a number of different custom faceplates for their various boards, yes. But you can for sure use the larger bezel for pretty much any of them; the display can be relocated with the addition of just 4 wires.

GX12s are very Steampunk/indutrial looking... a great way to tidy up the look of a lot of gear. Plus up to 7 pins is a nice assortment.

Hmmm... AliEx sent me a eMail telling me I had a $4 coupon on my primary account, so I went looking for a couple of the better 907 adapter PCBs as shown by Specmaster earlier in the thread. I found them at JimBonStore for $1.99 and while I was there I got another ILS tip. Total for 2 PCBs and 1 T12-ILS tip even after I sprung for the ePacket shipping, was $6.11. Not too bad. 

I figure I'll build up two of the horrible 907 handles I have as leftover parts to keep as spares or for use in cases where the slightly longer reach is an asset rather than an annoyance.

mnem
Press [button] to drop back & punt.

Precisely my thoughts and as I have been using a 907 handle on my other station before you introduced me to the T12, I'm quite happy to use them anyway. So I had already ordered a further 907 handle with a 5 pin GX12 fitted so that I'll have a 907 handle set for both the 4 and 5 pin stations for as you put it, "where the slightly longer reach is an asset rather than an annoyance" occasions . Hmm having a slightly longer reach has never caused me any problems on occasions, that extra reach comes in rather handy cough 

I find the 907 family grossly unwieldy... but then, I've been using the T12 cartridge system for years. First on a genuine Hakko station, then when it died in flames I converted my Aoyue 2702 to the T12 handle using my leftover parts. That was relatively simple; they already used the shorter T13 cartridges, so are designed for the technology.

Longer reach is a good start, but diameter is important too... you know, for a snug fit. 


mnem
};=)~~~~<

[Specmaster]

   


I had a '63 Rambler in powder blue (I think they ALL were made in that color that year) as a teen... I wish mine was anywhere near as nice as Hollywood Bob's example there. Then several of the Japanese "Bubble car", the first-gen Honda Civic in yellow, green and blue. Both had similar performance characteristics, with the Hondas having something that could actually be called "handling". The Rambler was like driving a wet noodle at highway speeds.

Call that Honda Civic a bubble car?, we call them city cars, here's what a real bubble car looks like, mine was the same colour as this and yep, you got in and out through the only door, the front door and I bet I looked a real tool in that as well seeing as I'm 6ft 4" tall. 

Not sure about what you're saying with the faceplates... looks like the same faceplate only appearing slightly different due to parallax and vanishing point perspective. KSGER DOES appear to make a number of different custom faceplates for their various boards, yes. But you can for sure use the larger bezel for pretty much any of them; the display can be relocated with the addition of just 4 wires.

OK, the windows do line up but the text? draw a line along the window edges through all of the plates and you'll see wait I mean, the lines dissect the text at different points on each plate.

Longer reach is a good start, but diameter is important too... you know, for a snug fit. 

Go careful with the diameter, its not important in real terms, too snug and it wont fit all, then you're screwed 

[beanflying]

We used to have a sporty Honda N360 in the family 0-80km/hr with 2 people in quite a while 

I needed a DC load so I brought this because my current four variable power supplies are not sufficient 

AC calibrator will have to wait for more doughnuts........

[Specmaster]

We used to have a sporty Honda N360 in the family 0-80km/hr with 2 people in quite a while 

I needed a DC load so I brought this because my current four variable power supplies are not sufficient 

AC calibrator will have to wait for more doughnuts........

Another great boat anchor, nice looking one though 

[bitseeker]

I needed a DC load so I brought this because my current four variable power supplies are not sufficient 

That 6632B looks like new! From time to time I feel like getting one. Let me know how you like its electronic load capabilities.

[beanflying]

Very clean and tidy indeed. Will be interesting to see how old/new it is as they only stopped production of them last year. Price was good too only a few hours from here at what would be a touch over $300USD. While I have plenty of supply's already this one will be the lowest noise I suspect so that plus the load feature made it worthwhile.

Justify Justify Justify......