Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

Feeling a bit fed up as have only just a few minutes ago got back home after sitting in a jam on the M11 due to a 3 car pile blocking the road some 5 miles in front and the next exit is 6 miles in front, for almost 2 hours.

Glad you made it before running out of fuel and/or freezing in the car while waiting.

Anyhow, got home now, knackered and starving, now to eat and later I'll take a look at my photos of F15's and an Osprey and if anyone is interested I'll post a link later to a couple of them.

Always up for pics of aircraft.

[bd139]

Slightly worried, I ordered 6 HRC cartridge fuses for my Fluke meter and 1,000 resistors, Just checked the delivery advise email telling me that they will be delivered tomorrow, which is great but, it says that the fuses weighing in at 84Gms and 1,000 resistors in a seperate parcel and weighing, wait ..wait for it   .... .... 1Gm 

This happens all the time. Just means it was unmeasured. Will turn up in a box.

Either that or we just bought 1 resistor each 

[beanflying]

Nearest Electronics store of any sort is now over 200km and a decent one 300+ away let alone clearance sales of test gear. All the former disposals type stores have headed down the chinese import path so aren't generally worth going to either.

This is why my stash of bits is OTT according to some but needed according to me 

[bd139]

If it's that bad I don't blame you. Then again most of Europe will fit inside Australia without overlapping the edges and London here in the UK has 40% of the population of the entire country so it makes sense really.

Sometimes I envy the challenges of living there if I'm honest. Everything is too fucking convenient here. And yes that's a bad thing because it removes a lot of instinctive value from life. Build with shit lying around vs buy something is a different story here in the UK. It nearly always goes to buy, and you learn bugger all doing that.

[Specmaster]

Here's what I've been doing all day, by request a few of the photos otherwise I'll be accused of being off topic 

[bd139]

We're a fan of well made bits of hardware .

Nice photos. Looks like you had a good day out. Thanks for posting 

Last bit of military hardware I got to see was one of the rendition flights coming out of RAF Northolt

[Specmaster]

Should you move to Chatteris then you might get to see some more as these and others have been known to do low flying practise over that part of the country because it is so flat.

[bitseeker]

Great shots, Specmaster. Thanks for sharing!

[Specmaster]

Great shots, Specmaster. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks, they are the first photos of 2018 and are a bit soft, possibly because it was so cold today and so windy I could feel it blowing the camera about. Here are some of my better ones over the last few years.

[bitseeker]

Wow, very cool!

[med6753]

Here's what I've been doing all day, by request a few of the photos otherwise I'll be accused of being off topic 

I watched USMC V-22's from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina do touch and go's at a local airport near the base. Quite interesting. 

[med6753]

Great shots, Specmaster. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks, they are the first photos of 2018 and are a bit soft, possibly because it was so cold today and so windy I could feel it blowing the camera about. Here are some of my better ones over the last few years.

Recently watched a documentary on the Vulcan raid at Stanley Airport during the Faukland's War. The only time the Vulcan was ever used in anger and was retired shortly after. They had to use a whole fleet of about 12 Vickers Valiant tankers to get it from Ascension Island to the Faukland's and back.

Also have watched the many You Tube videos of the Mach Loop in Wales and all the NATO aircraft doing low level training. Doesn't seem to bother the sheep in the fields much but I wonder what the local residents think.     

[neo]

Just for fun i openeed my decade resistance box and measured it's ranges,

Code: [Select]

Wires: 00.0110
Contact Resistance: 00.0310

Subtract from each reading: 00.0410

.1   00.1375
.2   00.2366
.3   00.3410
.4   00.4375
.5   00.5345
.6   00.6450
.7   00.7374
.8   00.8455
.9   00.9404
1    01.0438
2    02.0330
3    03.0300
4    04.0483
5    05.0354
6    06.0312
7    07.0300
8    08.0244
9    09.0400
10  10.0426
20  19.9812
30  29.9912
40  40.0095
50  50.0170
60  59.9450
70  69.9480
80  79.9688
90  89.9740
99.9 99.8559

Not anything that will put a ding in the universe until you consider that it's resistors are cloth insulated wires on sewing machine bobbins.

Also, specmaster those are amazing photos, mind if i use this one as a wall paper?

[med6753]

The Fluke 8800A is just about finished. Range switches cleaned and tantalum's replaced. Currently in a 5-6 hour burn-in then I'll do a final calibration. Initial checks of the cal show DCV pretty much on spec. Ohms 10K and above needs some tweaking. ACV as far as I can check looks OK.

Here's where it will reside on the bench with the other group of Flukes.

[neo]

Can you lot help me identify this?

Near as i can tell it had something to do with audio, given the headphone jacks. With the 4 pin tubes it is obviously '20s probably been kicking around this green globe since before my granddad was born. So this leaves me wondering if without tubes is it worthless?

All that IS there is a crusty transformer, semi crusty variable capacitors and what smells like a 100 year old hunk of wood. No manufacture name that I've yet found

TRF = Tune Radio Frequency?

[Cubdriver]

neo, that's a 1920s era TRF AM receiver - it looks at a glance like it might be home made.  It likely uses 01A tubes.


Edit it add - TRF came before superheterodyne, and rather than using a local oscillator and mixer to get an intermediate frequency that could be sent on through RF amps with fixed tuning, you tuned each stage individually to pass the maximum signal.  They're challenging to tune, as the three stages interact somewhat, and it's easiest to do if you have three hands.   

-Pat

[med6753]

It is a TRF radio from the 1920's. Any antique radio site should be able to help you identify who made it. And with some searching you still can round up a set of vacuum tubes for it.

[neo]

neo, that's a 1920s era TRF AM receiver - it looks at a glance like it might be home made.  It likely uses 01A tubes.

-Pat

So what do i do with it?

[Cubdriver]

neo, that's a 1920s era TRF AM receiver - it looks at a glance like it might be home made.  It likely uses 01A tubes.

-Pat

So what do i do with it?

It's an old battery set, and after looking again, it /might/ be a commercially produced one.  You could get a set of tubes and cobble together power supplies for the requisite voltages - it likely needs 6 at some current for the filaments, 90 for the B+ (very low current, this could be a stack of nine volt batteries), and perhaps 22 to 45 for grid bias, and play.  They're challenging, but can be a great deal of fun, too.

If you can wait a few days, I'll show the guys at the museum on Saturday, and if it's not a homebuilt, one of them will likely be able to identify it at a glance; knowing that I can then tell you more about it.

-Pat

[neo]

neo, that's a 1920s era TRF AM receiver - it looks at a glance like it might be home made.  It likely uses 01A tubes.

-Pat

So what do i do with it?

It's an old battery set, and after looking again, it /might/ be a commercially produced one.  You could get a set of tubes and cobble together power supplies for the requisite voltages - it likely needs 6 at some current for the filaments, 90 for the B+ (very low current, this could be a stack of nine volt batteries), and perhaps 22 to 45 for grid bias, and play.  They're challenging, but can be a great deal of fun, too.

If you can wait a few days, I'll show the guys at the museum on Saturday, and if it's not a homebuilt, one of them will likely be able to identify it at a glance; knowing that I can then tell you more about it.

-Pat

I can wait. You can, if you feel it's relevant tell them that the knobs on the front are marked kilograd.

To tell you the truth i don't know anything about tubes, at all. I got this at auction and dug it out in a bout of boredom. 

[mnementh]

Everything is more expensive here. Annoys the hell out of me.

Come Down Under for a few weeks' T&M bargain shopping, if you dare.

You'll soon find out that we are still a penal colony in that space.

You say that but when Dave goes to the warehouse sales he gets far better deals then we ever get here so it's not all bad there.

Yeah, I remember that 1 gig 'scope he "found dumpster-diving" last All Fool's Day... 


mnem
*Typed on a PC that's 60% 40% dumpster-score*

Yeh, I remember that one too, but then there was the HP 1740A, the TV etc that clearly were real. 

These things are Dave's "dumpster dives".

As he has said (more than once) access to these dumpsters absolutely excludes the public.  The dumpsters are located within secure premises.  The scroungers among us have dreams of such resources, but they just do not happen.

For the average Joe, Australia is a wasteland for second hand T&M.

This sums up my experience as well:

104 results for (oscilloscope, cro)  Used in Australia Only - includes probes accessories manual and about 60 Oscilloscopes total. Most of which are beyond salvation or overpriced to the 

Over 5000 in the USA evilbay by example. Cheaper to pay stupid amounts of freight to get a good price and range.

Yeah, when I lived in San Antonio I had similar access to dumpsters on several hospital campuses and several business offices. Found a lot of computer gear to recycle, and I was a licensed E-Waste handler, so once security got to know me, they just smiled and walked on by. Not a lot of test gear, though I did get a lot of network and telephony tools that way. Still have a Fluke 22 handset (well, the new Fluke 22 my insurance company bought to replace the one I got that way) and a LanTracker I use almost daily. And I had a dozen or more laser and commercial inkjet printers of all sorts up for sale on fleaBay and the e-Swap pretty much constantly. Kept me in ESCs and motors and LiPos quite nicely.

Here's what I've been doing all day, by request a few of the photos otherwise I'll be accused of being off topic 

               

Nice shots... I'm a little envious. Thanks for sharing with us earthbound misfits.

Can you lot help me identify this?

Near as i can tell it had something to do with audio, given the headphone jacks. With the 4 pin tubes it is obviously '20s probably been kicking around this green globe since before my granddad was born. So this leaves me wondering if without tubes is it worthless?

All that IS there is a crusty transformer, semi crusty variable capacitors and what smells like a 100 year old hunk of wood. No manufacture name that I've yet found

TRF = Tune Radio Frequency?

Yup, TRF receiver; what they had before the advent of SuperHet rigs. No real IFs, poor selectivity as each section amplified a pretty broad range and had to be tuned section by section.

Here's a basic schematic of a pretty common TRF build similar to yours; it's from the TRF Receiver Wiki page.


mnem
*nukular*

[Cubdriver]

neo, that's a 1920s era TRF AM receiver - it looks at a glance like it might be home made.  It likely uses 01A tubes.

-Pat

So what do i do with it?

It's an old battery set, and after looking again, it /might/ be a commercially produced one.  You could get a set of tubes and cobble together power supplies for the requisite voltages - it likely needs 6 at some current for the filaments, 90 for the B+ (very low current, this could be a stack of nine volt batteries), and perhaps 22 to 45 for grid bias, and play.  They're challenging, but can be a great deal of fun, too.

If you can wait a few days, I'll show the guys at the museum on Saturday, and if it's not a homebuilt, one of them will likely be able to identify it at a glance; knowing that I can then tell you more about it.

-Pat

I can wait. You can, if you feel it's relevant tell them that the knobs on the front are marked kilograd.

To tell you the truth i don't know anything about tubes, at all. I got this at auction and dug it out in a bout of boredom. 

Ok, I'll check.  There were about a gazillion different small companies during that time period that made them.  I have two, a Marwol Jewel and a Stewart-Warner 300.

Here's the connection diagram from the Stewart-Warner:


And there are a few more crappy iPhone snaps at:  https://pmanning.smugmug.com/Electronics/Battery-Sets

-Pat

[mnementh]

On to my T12 Project:

So I found and ordered a SSD-1306 driven 1.3" OLED display yesterday as I had a small windfall via PayPal and didn't mind paying like $3 extra to get it this month instead of sometime in March from China. I just got an eMail telling me it shipped... and tracking shows it about halfway here already. I could actually have it by Saturday (knock on wood).

Meanwhile, the KSGER gear I ordered almost 3 weeks ago... showed "Processed through a facility in Shenzhen" on Feb 2nd and hasn't updated since.  Either it got on a plane, or it fell off the alpaca's back somewhere between Wutong and Nanshan mountain. 

*Carefully places the soldering station to the back of the workbench and turns off the lights*


mnem
"...and stars in my pocket like grains of sand..."

[djos]

On to my T12 Project:

So I found and ordered a SSD-1306 driven 1.3" OLED display yesterday as I had a small windfall via PayPal and didn't mind paying like $3 extra to get it this month instead of sometime in March from China. I just got an eMail telling me it shipped... and tracking shows it about halfway here already. I could actually have it by Saturday (knock on wood).

Meanwhile, the KSGER gear I ordered almost 3 weeks ago... showed "Processed through a facility in Shenzhen" on Feb 2nd and hasn't updated since.  Either it got on a plane, or it fell off the alpaca's back somewhere between Wutong and Nanshan mountain. 

*Carefully places the soldering station to the back of the workbench and turns off the lights*


mnem
"...and stars in my pocket like grains of sand..."

it's Chinese New Year holiday's mate, I've got a batch of gear being manufactured by Elecrow atm and it's been delayed by 2 weeks due to the holidays.

[beanflying]

Starting to wonder if the dills at Pittney Bowes in Erlanger are on Chinese New Years as well. 6 days since my 5326B moved 

edit : Wonder what the problem might be..