Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

It's pretty quiet and dead safe most of the time really. TBH I think the worst thing that happened around us is a group of joggers was doing stretches on our gate post and it broke in half due to rot. Just saw it happen out of the window. Eyes met. They pegged it off. I was so pissed and the adrenaline kicked in I chased them down. Joggers are pack animals. The slowest one was easy to pick off. He paid the £200 repair bill and I got some exercise. Win win

Now Leyton - that was interesting.

Back on TEA, I am now building an HP 8640 clone generator because I can't find anything on the market I need. Grr. https://www.cwtd.org/AnalyzeThis/8640jr.pdf is the reference document.

Also does anyone know where I can get decent quality SMA board edge connectors and patches cheap. Also BNC/SMA adapters? I need lots. I'm prototyping a whole multi-band transceiver. RS is coming in at over 400 quid for it all which is ridiculous.

[bd139]

Confirmed. Not going to US

[Specmaster]

Don't think I'd like to go either when guns are so easy to get hold of, why the hell would you want to have gun about you anyway in a so called civilised country, beats the hell out of me.

[BravoV]

Guys, stick on the "Test Equipment" only, please.

[tautech]

Don't think I'd like to go either when guns are so easy to get hold of, why the hell would you want to have gun about you anyway in a so called civilised country, beats the hell out of me.

Critters and RATTLESNAKES ! 

[Specmaster]

Moving onto test gear and related items, this PCB holder is quite good, it holds the PCB reasonably tightly and if allows it to flipped over to enable parts to be fitted and then flipped again to aid soldering. No doubt there are bigger and better ones on the market if you do a lot PCB assembly and repairs it would worth getting one. However for the average hobbyist this good enough and for the price represents good value.

 

[mnementh]

Back on TEA, I am now building an HP 8640 clone generator because I can't find anything on the market I need. Grr. https://www.cwtd.org/AnalyzeThis/8640jr.pdf is the reference document.

Also does anyone know where I can get decent quality SMA board edge connectors and patches cheap. Also BNC/SMA adapters? I need lots. I'm prototyping a whole multi-band transceiver. RS is coming in at over 400 quid for it all which is ridiculous.

AliEx has a good selection of SMA:

These are the ones I use to fix broken 5.8GHz video transmitters:

And SMA to BNC:

Of course, the QC of any of this stuff is not the highest or most reliable; but if you're not expecting too many connect/disconnect cycles once assembled, they usually serve pretty well. In my hobby, they get broken pretty frequent due to crashing; it is a popular mod to replace with pigtailed SMA bulkhead connectors. Problem then is figuring out the correct resonant length; the folks who design these things often design with poor impedance matching to begin with, and with little regard for the resonance of the traces in the VTX. You can calculate the right length and still be out to lunch due to poor circuit design.

Confirmed. Not going to US

Wise choice; you might get picked up by ICE and deported to Syria. Now about BREXIT... 

Don't think I'd like to go either when guns are so easy to get hold of, why the hell would you want to have gun about you anyway in a so called civilised country, beats the hell out of me.

Critters and RATTLESNAKES ! 

I'm much more worried about my own Police Department running me over with a tank; I could care less about a few sand lobsters and snakes.  As far as I'm concerned, firearms should be registered, licensed, and regulated in exactly the same way as automobiles. When Wayne LaPierre gets his head blown off by some lunatic with a legally obtained AR-15, then maybe we'll have some common sense about it all over here; but not likely a minute sooner. 


mnem
They took my thumbs.

[tautech]

Confirmed. Not going to US

Wise choice; you might get picked up by ICE and deported to Syria. Now about BREXIT... 

Don't think I'd like to go either when guns are so easy to get hold of, why the hell would you want to have gun about you anyway in a so called civilised country, beats the hell out of me.

Critters and RATTLESNAKES ! 

I'm much more worried about my own Police Department running me over with a tank; I could care less about a few sand lobsters and snakes.  As far as I'm concerned, firearms should be registered, licensed, and regulated in exactly the same way as automobiles. When Wayne LaPierre gets his head blown off by some lunatic with a legally obtained AR-15, then maybe we'll have some common sense about it all over here; but not likely a minute sooner. 

Critters was added as a politically correct generalization of all things one might need to protect yourself from.
That might include anything/one that can spot the plainly obvious limey's when they cross the border.....ah, tourist....easy pickings ! 

[Specmaster]

Confirmed. Not going to US

Wise choice; you might get picked up by ICE and deported to Syria. Now about BREXIT... 

Don't think I'd like to go either when guns are so easy to get hold of, why the hell would you want to have gun about you anyway in a so called civilised country, beats the hell out of me.

Critters and RATTLESNAKES ! 

I'm much more worried about my own Police Department running me over with a tank; I could care less about a few sand lobsters and snakes.  As far as I'm concerned, firearms should be registered, licensed, and regulated in exactly the same way as automobiles. When Wayne LaPierre gets his head blown off by some lunatic with a legally obtained AR-15, then maybe we'll have some common sense about it all over here; but not likely a minute sooner. 

Critters was added as a politically correct generalization of all things one might need to protect yourself from.
That might include anything/one that can spot the plainly obvious limey's when they cross the border.....ah, tourist....easy pickings ! 

That's when you throw a 8505A on their heads, if that doesn't work, run like hell[emoji23]

[plazma]

Those PCB holders are 8€ in a local store. I bought one. It is ok for the price.

[bd139]

Back on TEA, I am now building an HP 8640 clone generator because I can't find anything on the market I need. Grr. https://www.cwtd.org/AnalyzeThis/8640jr.pdf is the reference document.

Also does anyone know where I can get decent quality SMA board edge connectors and patches cheap. Also BNC/SMA adapters? I need lots. I'm prototyping a whole multi-band transceiver. RS is coming in at over 400 quid for it all which is ridiculous.

AliEx has a good selection of SMA:

These are the ones I use to fix broken 5.8GHz video transmitters:

And SMA to BNC:

Of course, the QC of any of this stuff is not the highest or most reliable; but if you're not expecting too many connect/disconnect cycles once assembled, they usually serve pretty well. In my hobby, they get broken pretty frequent due to crashing; it is a popular mod to replace with pigtailed SMA bulkhead connectors. Problem then is figuring out the correct resonant length; the folks who design these things often design with poor impedance matching to begin with, and with little regard for the resonance of the traces in the VTX. You can calculate the right length and still be out to lunch due to poor circuit design.

Thanks for pointers. This is all prototype/disposable boards so I'm expecting 20-40 connect cycles out of those. Also sub 500MHz.

I was going to just use BNCs as I bought a massive bag of Amphenol parts for £30 off ebay but this is starting to turn into an unmanageable tentacle monster now.

[tggzzz]

Guys, please drop the guns, drugs and politics parts of this discussion. Too much of it and the thread will be locked, which would be a shame.

[Specmaster]

Moving onto test gear and related items, this PCB holder is quite good, it holds the PCB reasonably tightly and if allows it to flipped over to enable parts to be fitted and then flipped again to aid soldering. No doubt there are bigger and better ones on the market if you do a lot PCB assembly and repairs it would worth getting one. However for the average hobbyist this good enough and for the price represents good value.

Hmmm... going price appears to be ~ US$22-25 to the US. I've found a vendor selling for US$16, but ehhhh. I mean, if you don't have one at all I guess it's better than that; but it still seems awfully expensive for a bit of injection molded plastic and what equates to a stamped metal ruler. I was surprised to see how much they're selling for on AliEx. You got one for what, $US12?

mnem
There is a dot right over there.

The stock photo doesn't do it justice, the "ruler" is in fact 30mm by 15mm box section, I'll pop a proper photo up later, one thing I have noticed is that the thumb screws that hold the two sliding sections, actually don't work too well as they are just small and close to the feet to get any grip on them, when tightening and the spring in the clamp slowly pushes them apart and could allow the PCB to slip out if not re-tightened.

Aliex is not always the cheapest place to shop, I got mine from Amazon on prime with next day free delivery for less than £10, Aliex cheapest I could see was almost £14 and then almost 4 weeks to wait it to arrive. For me to shop with Aliex, there must be a significant amount of savings to justify the extended delivery period. 

[mnementh]

Back on TEA, I am now building an HP 8640 clone generator because I can't find anything on the market I need. Grr. https://www.cwtd.org/AnalyzeThis/8640jr.pdf is the reference document.

Also does anyone know where I can get decent quality SMA board edge connectors and patches cheap. Also BNC/SMA adapters? I need lots. I'm prototyping a whole multi-band transceiver. RS is coming in at over 400 quid for it all which is ridiculous.

AliEx has a good selection of SMA:

These are the ones I use to fix broken 5.8GHz video transmitters:

And SMA to BNC:

Of course, the QC of any of this stuff is not the highest or most reliable; but if you're not expecting too many connect/disconnect cycles once assembled, they usually serve pretty well. In my hobby, they get broken pretty frequent due to crashing; it is a popular mod to replace with pigtailed SMA bulkhead connectors. Problem then is figuring out the correct resonant length; the folks who design these things often design with poor impedance matching to begin with, and with little regard for the resonance of the traces in the VTX. You can calculate the right length and still be out to lunch due to poor circuit design.

Thanks for pointers. This is all prototype/disposable boards so I'm expecting 20-40 connect cycles out of those. Also sub 500MHz.

I was going to just use BNCs as I bought a massive bag of Amphenol parts for £30 off ebay but this is starting to turn into an unmanageable tentacle monster now.

If power levels are small enough, you might consider uFL/IPEX. AliEx has a good selection of PCB-mount IPEX connectors and ready-made interconnects; the smaller cables might be more manageable. And of course, they'll have pigtails with uFL on one end and SMA or BNC on the other for stuff that needs to exit the box.

They also have MMCX in similar configurations which can handle higher power at lower loss, but those are not as cheap & easy to implement as IPEX. It appears MMCX is enjoying a bit of a resurgence in popularity as a connector for audiophule earbuds and headphones. 

Moving onto test gear and related items, this PCB holder is quite good, it holds the PCB reasonably tightly and if allows it to flipped over to enable parts to be fitted and then flipped again to aid soldering. No doubt there are bigger and better ones on the market if you do a lot PCB assembly and repairs it would worth getting one. However for the average hobbyist this good enough and for the price represents good value.

Hmmm... going price appears to be ~ US$22-25 to the US. I've found a vendor selling for US$16, but ehhhh. I mean, if you don't have one at all I guess it's better than that; but it still seems awfully expensive for a bit of injection molded plastic and what equates to a stamped metal ruler. I was surprised to see how much they're selling for on AliEx. You got one for what, $US12?

mnem
There is a dot right over there.

The stock photo doesn't do it justice, the "ruler" is in fact 30mm by 15mm box section, I'll pop a proper photo up later, one thing I have noticed is that the thumb screws that hold the two sliding sections, actually don't work too well as they are just small and close to the feet to get any grip on them, when tightening and the spring in the clamp slowly pushes them apart and could allow the PCB to slip out if not re-tightened.

Aliex is not always the cheapest place to shop, I got mine from Amazon on prime with next day free delivery for less than £10, Aliex cheapest I could see was almost £14 and then almost 4 weeks to wait it to arrive. For me to shop with Aliex, there must be a significant amount of savings to justify the extended delivery period. 

Yeah, I've found AliEx can be higher too; sometimes get the same stuff for much less from US vendors on fleaBay. It's all about what the market will bear, I guess. I looked at the thing from several different vendors and lots of photos to be sure it was the same; aside from some bits being black instead of blue, this appears to be sold by oodles of vendors on fleaBay, AliEx and Amazon.



And I just did a different search using a different text string, and found it for US$12.56 with free Prime shipping. That's cheap enough that I'd probably buy one myself if I didn't already have Panavise. Actually, I think I'll add it to my "retail therapy" list just on GP.

mnem
*ploop*

[tautech]

Confirmed. Not going to US

Somewhere on my bucket list: Smithsonian Institute.
Probably need a week there. 

[mnementh]

Confirmed. Not going to US

Somewhere on my bucket list: Smithsonian Institute.
Probably need a week there. 

*Chest thump*

Church.

mnem
Fair enough.

[GerryBags]

Well, I won that ESI 210DE bridge! It now has to make it across the Atlantic one more time (maybe it was Navy?) before a permanent home on my shoe-rack-cum-test-bench is found for it. Hope it doesn't get sir-sick! Thanks again to Vgkid for the service manual. It was the Tek2245A that I kept quiet about that I didn't win. Sucks to be me.

[Specmaster]

As promised, here are some photos of the PCB jig and its failing is the fact that the screws that clamp the moving end pieces to accommodate the different sizes of boards are in my pinion to close to the feet and the vertical section to make it easy to tighten sufficiently to prevent the creepage apart of the end clamps (maybe I'm getting to frail these days) you need to use pliers  Otherwise its pretty good value for the money.

 

[lowimpedance]

Well, I won that ESI 210DE bridge! It now has to make it across the Atlantic one more time (maybe it was Navy?) before a permanent home on my shoe-rack-cum-test-bench is found for it. Hope it doesn't get sir-sick! Thanks again to Vgkid for the service manual. It was the Tek2245A that I kept quiet about that I didn't win. Sucks to be me.

Well perhaps you should have posted about the TEK 2245 in neon for all to see and you may have been luckier  .
You will enjoy playing with the ESI though if thats any consolation. BTW the ESI most likely has /(had)  batteries so open it up to check for past leakage corrosion etc when it arrives.

[GerryBags]

Low Impedance, thanks! Yes, four big ones I understand. The seller says that he tested a few known components of his in a unscientific way but that the results were spot on, so hopefully the batteries will be ok. The pic of the battery compartment looked clean.

Re. the Tek... there must be a band of Ebay Tek marauders who roam about looking for auctions that are about to end. Not a bid nor a watcher for 3 days, then got outbid at the last second. Buggrit. Oh well, one of these days. There are a couple of 2246's Stateside that I might be tempted towards if they are still available at the end of the month. They're BuyItNow, which I prefer. Despite usually paying less, I find the auctions stressy and disappointing.

[bd139]

Keep an eye on gumtree as well. There are some dummies who have no idea what stuff is worth.

I am a regular sniper of Teks on ebay here in the UK. If you bagsy it first on here it's yours. Although that one wasn't my doing

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/232663054276

^^ I did have a bash on that one but was outbid before I even put my first bid in 

[Terry01]

Keep an eye on gumtree as well. There are some dummies who have no idea what stuff is worth.

I am a regular sniper of Teks on ebay here in the UK. If you bagsy it first on here it's yours. Although that one wasn't my doing

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/232663054276

^^ I did have a bash on that one but was outbid before I even put my first bid in 

Holy smokes!! You know how to drive that thing? 

[mnementh]

Low Impedance, thanks! Yes, four big ones I understand. The seller says that he tested a few known components of his in a unscientific way but that the results were spot on, so hopefully the batteries will be ok. The pic of the battery compartment looked clean.

Re. the Tek... there must be a band of Ebay Tek marauders who roam about looking for auctions that are about to end. Not a bid nor a watcher for 3 days, then got outbid at the last second. Buggrit. Oh well, one of these days. There are a couple of 2246's Stateside that I might be tempted towards if they are still available at the end of the month. They're BuyItNow, which I prefer. Despite usually paying less, I find the auctions stressy and disappointing.

No... no marauding bands; just individual professionals (and would-be professionals) using a sniping service. They don't put it on a watch list because they already have it in their snipe list; the sniping service doesn't bid for you until the last few seconds of the auction. Why would you put it in your watch list just to alert other bidders that there's lots of people interested in an auction...?


mnem
gixen.com is your friend. Level the playing field.

[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..."

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.

Oh, I'm painfully aware of the pitfalls of CNY, trust me. I've been buying components from China for decades. This stuff was ordered 3 weeks ago and like almost everything I order this way, I paid for ePacket; all they had to do was get it to the USPS Depot in Shenzhen. From there, it's on the USPS calendar, not mainland China's.

Some vendors just don't know how to process ePacket correctly; about half the time they use China Post to get it to the USPS Depot (totally defeats the purpose) and if they use the China Post mailing app, it gets processed as if it were a China Post parcel, NOT ePacket.

If it's processed correctly with a USPS ePacket label it takes 10 days or less from the time they get it at the USPS depot, this is what ePacket was invented for; to get components from China into US devs and engineers' hands without waiting forever and costing more than they're worth.
(SNIP)

mnem
There is something seriously wrong with me...

It FINALLY landed here in the US today; clearly it did NOT ship via ePacket as I paid for, but rather the regular "Slow boat from China". Guess I was lucky it actually got off the docks before the week leading up to the Lunar New Year, as precious little is accomplished then with everybody getting ready for their week off.

Once it gets here (another 3-7 days probably, as plain "China Post"="No Class Mail" here in the States) I plan to set fire to somebody's arse via eMail.


mnem
grr. arrg.

[beanflying]

$50 AUD freight for 2500km on this lump - Bargain 

T&M Tear it apart thread starter item