Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Super Low Emission Zone. Anything inside the north circular basically. Rather close to that and go in and out of the city a lot so will get expensive. Anything made after 2015ish that isn’t too hungry and isn’t diese is fine. Not electric yet.

I'm fucked then, 2013 add diesel  I can't see as electric is going to be the answer, Chelmsford to Southampton and back, cutting across London as well is 250 miles, about the range of an electric car, so might even have to stop off for a charge somewhere as well. I really cannot see that happening, they will have to find a better solution then that.

[Specmaster]

Only 85k miles. It’s just I drive it like a Land Rover. Still on first clutch so not too bad. Going to grab a new car next year. One that I can actually drive inside London SLEZ in 2020... longer you put this change off the cheaper it gets

I can’t stand Home Bargains. If I was going to go on a shooting rampage it’d be in there

Only 85K miles and the clutch is about ready to take a dirt nap? Must be a lot of stop and go driving or you ride that sucker. 

I have nearly 190K miles on my 2004 Honda Civic and it has the original factory clutch. But no city driving.

Living where bd139 does, he can't avoid city driving and yes it's all stop and start stuff there OK.

[mnementh]

...  The stuff the outer casing was made of was incredible.  A full swing blow with a 21oz ball pein hammer just bounced off.  ...

Polycarbonate, intended as a containment mechanism if the disk decided to go totally Tonto at a few thousand RPM. Those spindles are basically flywheels and, depending on the drive model, weigh a few kilos to several hundred kilos. That, spinning at a few thousand RPM, has not insignificant energy bound up in its motion. It used to be a standard practice for bored technicians and programmers to pull out the specs for proper man sized disk drives, calculate the kinetic energy of the spindle at full working speed and work out how much of the building it would demolish on its way out if it ever broke free of its bearings.

Indeed, but it is piffle compared to the rotational energy in a power station steam turbine.

I remember that, as I kid, I had a book on modern transport in which there was a bus that spun up a flywheel when breaking, and used the energy when pulling away. I presume that going round a corner wasn't too difficult, since by then the flywheel ought to have slowed down.

Now that's some proper gyroscope... a big boxer twin with shaft drive!

Ever ridden a BMW R-series? You can learn how to handle the gyro effect; even use it to your advantage. 

We used to do the same mental exercises; but there's a fundamental flaw in the logic most apply to the calculation: Calculating the damage as presented by the total mass. In reality, if the total mass of the thing broke loose of its bearings, it would do jack-sh** except sit there spinning like a top until the shaft drilled a hole into the floor; in fact, it would be very hard to make it do anything BUT that unless you were stupid enough to poke it with something, and poke it VERY HARD. In reality, you have to calculate the terminal velocity of a PIECE of each disc as if the thing had shattered.



We spent many an afternoon arguing over the real kinetics involved; the likelihood of more than one disc grenading, and how much actual mass that one piece would likely have, as the platters on these things were actually a torus, NOT a disc. The general consensus we arrived at was that it was reasonable to assume 2 or 3 platters at most, and projectiles approximating 1/3 to 1/4 the mass of each platter, as we conjectured that the mass of the rest of the assembly would tend to make it keep spinning in place unless a really big piece of the enclosure jammed it up; then it would essentially become a great big one of these...

The odds of a platter breaking into less than 3 large pieces was pretty small, we figured; that of course prompted us to go off on tangents, like kill counts arrived at by trying to figure out how many fragments a disc could possibly break into with sufficient mass to escape the enclosure with sufficient velocity to actually still go through someone. This of course was all predicated upon models using ceramic/glass substrate assemblies, as even allowing for decades of vibrational embrittlement the odds of a forged aluminum platter grenading were "Statistically insignificant".


http://www.legitreviews.com/250-hard-drives-will-make-one-epic-f1-car_127581

I tripped over this yesterday while looking for other stuff... kindof makes Magna-Dragon seem a bit primitive. But in his defense, he is held together ONLY by magnetism; this HDD F1 car was fabbed up by a WD engineer with a full machine shop at his disposal.


In other news...




$15 HP laptop spent all night downloading and is still installing over 1GB of updates; this AFTER I installed the 485MB October '15 update rollup off my DIAGS thumb drive so it COULD connect and update. I am SO gonna make an image of it the INSTANT it finishes... then maybe ghost it all over to that $25 SSD from MicroCenter. The T95N TV Box not only works, it is 4K-capable and has Kodi pre-installed. Nifty...


K... I need to go back and finish my rounds of the local pawn shops... I'm vapor.


mnem
In God we trust... all other pay cash.

[bd139]

If anyone is looking at the 465 in Southampton, don't worry I'm not after it, to far away for me to go anyway, my right knee started to ache today just driving round Essx without going all the way for a scope. I'm falling apart.

Getting old is not for the squeamish.

I considered that 465B, but I've got to pick up my newly-acquired Tek a6902a isolator.
And assemble many of my other acquisitions.
And work out why sending something via company X is so much more expensive that Parcel2Go quotes.
And clear out some other scopes before the floor collapses.
My house is full - doubly so since spoglet+mutt is also here

Similar here.

Decided this was a good one as it's relatively small and if it passes self test then it's a cash multiplier. If it doesn't then money back.

WRT to junk, I am possibly due to unfortunate circumstances about to inherit a large pile of radio equipment and test gear. It's old stuff from the 1950s and 1960s though, mostly valves, mostly weighs more than 20kg and mostly has been buggered around with so that's going to be a nightmare.

Only 85k miles. It’s just I drive it like a Land Rover. Still on first clutch so not too bad. Going to grab a new car next year. One that I can actually drive inside London SLEZ in 2020... longer you put this change off the cheaper it gets

I can’t stand Home Bargains. If I was going to go on a shooting rampage it’d be in there

Only 85K miles and the clutch is about ready to take a dirt nap? Must be a lot of stop and go driving or you ride that sucker. 

I have nearly 190K miles on my 2004 Honda Civic and it has the original factory clutch. But no city driving.

I live in London. It eats clutches. I can do an average of 15mph driving into the city on a bad day

Super Low Emission Zone. Anything inside the north circular basically. Rather close to that and go in and out of the city a lot so will get expensive. Anything made after 2015ish that isn’t too hungry and isn’t diese is fine. Not electric yet.

I'm fucked then, 2013 add diesel  I can't see as electric is going to be the answer, Chelmsford to Southampton and back, cutting across London as well is 250 miles, about the range of an electric car, so might even have to stop off for a charge somewhere as well. I really cannot see that happening, they will have to find a better solution then that.

Sorry ULEZ and 2021 not SLEZ and 2020. Old age is getting to my brain. Here's the map of dooooom: http://content.tfl.gov.uk/ulez-boundary-map-from-25-october-2021.pdf

I am next to the "e" in Isleworth

I'm leaving it last minute as I'll be able to buy a 5 year old car then thus saving money for TEA. Will rag this pile of shit into the ground until then.

[med6753]

Holy crap, the attenuator has been shipped. That was quick. But it's coming from Arizona so it will be late next week. USPS ground is like the Pony Express. 

[nixiefreqq]

-    my basement is an "HP" zone.

+   but it is only a 35 minute drive.

-    however the face of that crt looks kinda tiny.

+   but it is only pocket change.

-    i really don't have a use for 50 mhz scope.

+   but he says it is  fully functional and there is nothing to fix.

-    but he says it is fully functional and there is nothing to fix.


what do you tek guys think?

https://york.craigslist.org/ele/d/oscilloscope-tektronix-453/6647770309.html

[bd139]

Buy it for that price. 453 is built like a spacecraft inside!

http://www.pa4tim.nl/?p=3247

[med6753]

-    my basement is an "HP" zone.

+   but it is only a 35 minute drive.

-    however the face of that crt looks kinda tiny.

+   but it is only pocket change.

-    i really don't have a use for 50 mhz scope.

+   but he says it is  fully functional and there is nothing to fix.

-    but he says it is fully functional and there is nothing to fix.


what do you tek guys think?

https://york.craigslist.org/ele/d/oscilloscope-tektronix-453/6647770309.html

With all those probes you need to ask? If I were in PA rather than NY I'd buy it, even though I'm not too fond of 453's.

[bd139]

Didn’t see the probes. That’s a bargain!

[Specmaster]

-    my basement is an "HP" zone.

+   but it is only a 35 minute drive.

-    however the face of that crt looks kinda tiny.

+   but it is only pocket change.

-    i really don't have a use for 50 mhz scope.

+   but he says it is  fully functional and there is nothing to fix.

-    but he says it is fully functional and there is nothing to fix.


what do you tek guys think?

https://york.craigslist.org/ele/d/oscilloscope-tektronix-453/6647770309.html

Well I'm not a Tek guy but it does look to be OK and in good condition overall so no reason to doubt the seller. However that screen is small, only 6 divisions high opposed to 8 and with a limitation of 10v a division might be restrictive? As you know the 1740 has 20V/div so I'd stay with HP.

[Mr. Scram]

After opening a case on both eBay and Paypal the non responsive seller suddenly decided to offer reshipping the same item. No thanks, I'll take a refund.

[bd139]

Hahaha hell no.

[Specmaster]

After opening a case on both eBay and Paypal the non responsive seller suddenly decided to offer reshipping the same item. No thanks, I'll take a refund.

Yeh, if you allow reshipping I'll wager it never arrives, made that mistake once, never again.

[Specmaster]

15mph in London on a bad day, hell I'd be lucky to achieve that on a good day in London during the week daytimes. Only get around 24mph in Chelmsford on most days. [emoji852]️

[nixiefreqq]

-    my basement is an "HP" zone.

+   but it is only a 35 minute drive.

-    however the face of that crt looks kinda tiny.

+   but it is only pocket change.

-    i really don't have a use for 50 mhz scope.

+   but he says it is  fully functional and there is nothing to fix.

-    but he says it is fully functional and there is nothing to fix.


what do you tek guys think?

https://york.craigslist.org/ele/d/oscilloscope-tektronix-453/6647770309.html

Well I'm not a Tek guy but it does look to be OK and in good condition overall so no reason to doubt the seller. However that screen is small, only 6 divisions high opposed to 8 and with a limitation of 10v a division might be restrictive? As you know the 1740 has 20V/div so I'd stay with HP.

good points made by everyone.

am gonna' take some time and think about it.

hopefully some kid looking for the mythical "50 MHz for under $50 cro" will snatch it up and save me a drive.

[mnementh]

-    my basement is an "HP" zone.

+   but it is only a 35 minute drive.

-    however the face of that crt looks kinda tiny.

+   but it is only pocket change.

-    i really don't have a use for 50 mhz scope.

+   but he says it is  fully functional and there is nothing to fix.

-    but he says it is fully functional and there is nothing to fix.


what do you tek guys think?

https://york.craigslist.org/ele/d/oscilloscope-tektronix-453/6647770309.html

With all those probes you need to ask? If I were in PA rather than NY I'd buy it, even though I'm not too fond of 453's.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg1528642/#msg1528642

I think one of you needs to take my 454 and show it some love. 

Seriously. I just want it to go to a good home. I can understand nobody being interested in the 2230; it had been butchered before I got it, and my attempts at rehab didn't really save it, they only staved off the gremlins for another decade or so. But this 454 is all original; only thing I've been inside it for is to dust it out and replace fuses when the HV gets a bug up its ass.


mnem
*off. slightly.*

[mnementh]

Resolved: All that misery because you just HAD to interpret a [space]? SERIOUSLY? Sit on it and twirl, EEVblog. 


Hmmm... interesting.

I'm sure most of us know about using Gurgle's " site: " search algorithm to find things on EEVblog; however I just found something I didn't know: You can actually dial in some pretty fine granularity; it is possible to search individual subforums here as well. Not only that; you do NOT have to enter a search query!

THIS:

site:www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/

will return a listing of posts on our thread. If you then click on the [Images] radio button, you can scroll through all images uploaded to our thread, sorted similarly.


If you then add a search query, you can find images posted to our forum associated with that term, like so:

454 site:www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/


I was able to find the pic (and the post) where I originally offered my free Tekittens to a good home within the first few dozen hits; I had tried repeatedly using the EEVblog site advanced search with no joy.


Cheers,

mnem
*out there*

[bd139]

Random time nuttery fun this evening which will result in more test gear being purchased but only if it has a 10MHz reference input. Ooh need a distribution amp then too. DG1022Z and the TF930 have reference inputs.

Firstly box arrived (Takachi YM-180) and parts chucked in. Made a little crappy 7805 power supply for the digital boards. Rough parts placement. Plan is to have external GPS antenna, QRP labs clock kit as front end + display and the PLL board at the rear will use the 1pps to derive a 10MHz reference which will be farted out the back. Most of the bits are still on the slow boat from China though 



That only took a few minutes. Next toy was evaluation of VCTCXO blocks to see if they are any good for this application. Metcal+X-Acto+FR4+SMD = best protoyping method ever. Managed to squeeze an MCP1700 LDO and some caps on there too as the rest of the system is 5V and this is a 3.3V part.



Unfortunately it looks like the initial accuracy plus pulling range isn't quite good enough for this to cover a reasonable span BECAUSE I MISREAD THE DATASHEET  . Ergo back to the drawing board. £5 down the shitter as always but it'll do reasonably well as a quick 10MHz calibration ref for scopes. All is not lost.

Specmaster: btw the wires on that are legs off the ones in those big boxes of resistors we ripped RS off for (found a use!)

Metcal is amazing for this stuff. You can literally touch one end of a wire and be done before the other end gets hot. Plus groundplanes? Pah. I remember getting my Antex C15 stuck to FR4 many years ago and having to snap it off. This thing stays hotter than satan's bollocks.

Edit: also have discovered 62/36/2 silver solder. The stuff is amazing.

Anyway going to bed as it feels like my eyeballs are going to fall out after staring at that for the last hour.

[tautech]

snipped

Edit: also have discovered 62/36/2 silver solder. The stuff is amazing.

Mode= 'where have you been ?' 

Shhhhh, you'll put the price up !

Really you all should have a little spool for those 'special' jobs or needs. 

[med6753]

Well my replacement BNC's are in the U.S. Not sure where though, it doesn't specify. I am assuming JFK but it could be Boston or somewhere else. I doubt I'll have them delivered by tomorrow. Still have to clear Customs then USPS will pick it up.

The package did come in thru JFK. It's apparently done Customs and at the USPS Distribution Center in Queens, NY which is the boro of Queens County in NYC. With any luck I'll have it Monday.

[Mr. Scram]

Yeh, if you allow reshipping I'll wager it never arrives, made that mistake once, never again.

If it's a seller with a long and good history I would consider it. As this is a seller with relatively little feedback and a large percentage of it is recent and bad, no chance.

[Specmaster]

Yeh, if you allow reshipping I'll wager it never arrives, made that mistake once, never again.

If it's a seller with a long and good history I would consider it. As this is a seller with relatively little feedback and a large percentage of it is recent and bad, no chance.

I did the same with a Chinese seller, had loads (thousands of positive feedbacks) but the replacement item never arrived. Fortunately I was able to repair the faulty item for £1.51. He kept claiming it had been send, but tracking showed it was still in China. I think he was just playing for time for the window of opportunity for Ebay claim to be raised to close and from that time on he ignored my emails 

Also of course, once that window closes, so does the opportunity to give bad or negative feedback, as the feedback window closes for good and some Chinese sellers know this.

[Kosmic]

Yeh, if you allow reshipping I'll wager it never arrives, made that mistake once, never again.

If it's a seller with a long and good history I would consider it. As this is a seller with relatively little feedback and a large percentage of it is recent and bad, no chance.

Same here, seller said he will reship. But apparently both shipment were lost 

Yeah right.

[Mr. Scram]

Same here, seller said he will reship. But apparently both shipment were lost 

Yeah right.

I am actually dealing with another seller that shipped twice without result. The difference is that they were very communicative, extended the term to open a case without me asking and that they have good feedback.

[Kosmic]

Same here, seller said he will reship. But apparently both shipment were lost 

Yeah right.

I am actually dealing with another seller that shipped twice without result. The difference is that they were very communicative, extended the term to open a case without me asking and that they have good feedback.

I guess it's possible. Lost couples of shipment recently (from China). But now I always ask directly for a refund.