Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

I just showed that photo:

to SWMBO and declared: "SEE!  I'm not that bad!!" pointing to my modest setup.

Her response - "Well, if we pull out all your bits and pieces..."

I plaintively protested: "But that's only his work bench .... !!!" as she was leaving the room.


I'm never going to win, am I?

I did the same. I got one eyebrow which is the “not over my dead body” look 

There are advantages to no resident SWMBO and this is a classic example. 

[Specmaster]

So what is it, am I the only one dumb or brave enough to go for a stab at bagging something from that American seller with all that nice Fluke and Tektronix goodies on offer?

[med6753]

So what is it, am I the only one dumb or brave enough to go for a stab at bagging something from that American seller with all that nice Fluke and Tektronix goodies on offer?

Are you referring to nmem's PM?

[Specmaster]

So what is it, am I the only one dumb or brave enough to go for a stab at bagging something from that American seller with all that nice Fluke and Tektronix goodies on offer?

Are you referring to nmem's PM?

Correct 

[Specmaster]

I just showed that photo:

to SWMBO and declared: "SEE!  I'm not that bad!!" pointing to my modest setup.

Her response - "Well, if we pull out all your bits and pieces..."

I plaintively protested: "But that's only his work bench .... !!!" as she was leaving the room.


I'm never going to win, am I?

I did the same. I got one eyebrow which is the “not over my dead body” look 

There are advantages to no resident SWMBO and this is a classic example. 

If you really need to make a point just show SWMBO this video, that should get the results you seek.

[med6753]

So what is it, am I the only one dumb or brave enough to go for a stab at bagging something from that American seller with all that nice Fluke and Tektronix goodies on offer?

Are you referring to nmem's PM?

Correct 

Yep, lots of good deals and I could easily go broke so I'm refraining from talking about it or I'll convince myself to start buying. 

[med6753]

I just showed that photo:

to SWMBO and declared: "SEE!  I'm not that bad!!" pointing to my modest setup.

Her response - "Well, if we pull out all your bits and pieces..."

I plaintively protested: "But that's only his work bench .... !!!" as she was leaving the room.


I'm never going to win, am I?

I did the same. I got one eyebrow which is the “not over my dead body” look 

There are advantages to no resident SWMBO and this is a classic example. 

If you really need to make a point just show SWMBO this video, that should get the results you seek.

Mr Carlson's arrangement works I suspect because he has his entire lab in the basement of his residence. I'll bet the SWMBO rules the roost in the upper floors. And that's great if you gots the room.

[Specmaster]

Well I'd be failing in my duty of being a supporter for you if I let it go at that so I'm saying to you, go on and have a look, you know that you want to and should do, after this is the TEA room and resistance is futile because it won't last 

[med6753]

Well I'd be failing in my duty of being a supporter for you if I let it go at that so I'm saying to you, go on and have a look, you know that you want to and should do, after this is the TEA room and resistance is futile because it won't last 

Hey, I have supported the cause. I have that 465B coming. I've been in contact with the seller and implored with him to make sure it's adequately packed. He assured me that it would be double bubble wrapped. But then his shipper of choice is FedEx. Those guys have been caught on video numerous times tossing packages over gates just like your Hermes.   

[Specmaster]

Need to be a strong person to hurl a 465B over a gate though.

But your right to be  , I received received a Tek TDS210 that had been double wrapped in bubble wrap, the small kind of bubbles and most of them bubbles had already been popped and then the whole thing dropped into a cardboard box and done up with normal sellotape not parcel tape. then just to top it all off, the box was too large for the scope and had about 2" of vertical height to fill, fine except the seller used AIR to fill the void, seriously.

When I signed for the parcel, my heart was in my mouth as I could feel and hear the scope moving about inside the box but fortunately they are lightweight and no damage was done   

[bd139]

If I’m not happy I always sign it with X. Then you can deny it

[Specmaster]

I photographed it at various stages of unwrapping it to show the issues as they unfolded if required, fortunately they were not required. 

[Cerebus]

I just showed that photo:

to SWMBO and declared: "SEE!  I'm not that bad!!" pointing to my modest setup.

Her response - "Well, if we pull out all your bits and pieces..."

I plaintively protested: "But that's only his work bench .... !!!" as she was leaving the room.


I'm never going to win, am I?

It's taken you this long to figure that out?  I think I was on girlfriend No. 2 when I realised that those weren't sitcoms on TV, they were documentaries.

Typical evening's ebay surfing:
    Me: "Ooo! That's a good price, that's a very good price."
    SWMBO: "How big is it?"

[med6753]

Whenever my lady visits I try to explain to her what I've been doing in ref to TEA. She looks at me and says she'll never understand what all this stuff is and even after you explain it I still won't understand. Then she says "I'm glad you enjoy playing with this stuff because then I know you're not out playing with other women." 

Yep....she's a keeper! 

[Specmaster]

Whenever my lady visits I try to explain to her what I've been doing in ref to TEA. She looks at me and says she'll never understand what all this stuff is and even after you explain it I still won't understand. Then she says "I'm glad you enjoy playing with this stuff because then I know you're not out playing with other women." 

Yep....she's a keeper! 

Hmm that doesn't quiet compute, but leave her in that ignorent bliss. There are a growing number of women in electronics these days and we have some among our forum members, some of whom are TEA members [emoji6]

[mnementh]

Digikey have 1% resistor kits.  I have a few of them.  Even if I've run out of the 'exact' value, the next value up or down will do the trick to replace a 5% resistor.

Shame about the Radio Shack. stores  They certainly were useful at times.

Yup, I've about decided to get one of those and update my resistor stock.  It's tragic when Fry's has hundreds of resistor slots on their display, and half of them are either empty, mis-stocked, or in a pile of loose packages under the shelving.  The associates clearly don't care about re-stocking or sorting them; I'm not even going to bother looking next time.

They used to have some test equipment such as scopes, power supplies, etc. set up for display.  When I was thinking about a scope, I went to look them over and push a few buttons.  I can be swayed to spend a few extra dollars if I get to handle the gear and verify that it does what I want.  But no, now they just have a few low-end items in sealed boxes at higher prices than I can get next-day shipped from Amazon.  Retail stores are killing themselves.

Radio Shack back in the 70s had all kinds of enclosures, switches, components, and drawer after drawer of piece parts that they didn't want out on display.  A few minutes of searching and you could find something useful for your emergency repair or custom project without having to mail-order a part or drive 50 miles to the next city.  As a college friend once said, "It's the place where you can buy an op-amp on a Sunday afternoon."  Not the cheapest, but sometimes what you desperately needed.  Once they went down the road of cheap consumer electronics, phones and R/C parts, it was inevitable that they'd lose the hobbyist market which sustained them for years.

Radio Shack has been going out of business for 20 years... I don't know whose idea it was to follow in Sears' "Brand Central" marketing model AFTER it destroyed the Sears-Roebuck brand, but they need to have their manberries ground into a fine paste in situ without anaesthesia.

If you're lucky enough to have one nearby, go check out Micro Center. My local one is laid out with very much the same sort of "It was organized when we put it out here" clutter that made Red Ten feel like home. They have NTE, Klein, Hakko and SRA Solder/ Chemtronics product in stock,  , as well as Adafruit and RoBugz  ... but they also have several EXTECH and a 1054Z on the shelves, so at least our store has SOMEBODY in procurement that knows and cares what the electronics hobbyist wants and needs.

So what is it, am I the only one dumb or brave enough to go for a stab at bagging something from that American seller with all that nice Fluke and Tektronix goodies on offer?

Are you referring to nmem's PM?

Correct 

Yep, lots of good deals and I could easily go broke so I'm refraining from talking about it or I'll convince myself to start buying. 

I think everybody is waiting to see what actually arrives from our purchases.

Either that, or they're playing the "I KNOW NUSS-SINK!!!" game until it arrives so as not to jinx themselves. 


mnem
*Wearing out my [F3] button looking for my latest TEAcquisition to show *Shipped*

[neo]

So what is it, am I the only one dumb or brave enough to go for a stab at bagging something from that American seller with all that nice Fluke and Tektronix goodies on offer?

Are you referring to nmem's PM?

Correct 

I'd dip my toes in the water too if only i had funds that were not allocated to hamfest. 

will show his workbench just as soon as the september hamfest passes and he gets the 8200A in the mail.

[GregDunn]

Radio Shack has been going out of business for 20 years... I don't know whose idea it was to follow in Sears' "Brand Central" marketing model AFTER it destroyed the Sears-Roebuck brand, but they need to have their manberries ground into a fine paste in situ without anaesthesia.

If you're lucky enough to have one nearby, go check out Micro Center. My local one is laid out with very much the same sort of "It was organized when we put it out here" clutter that made Red Ten feel like home. They have NTE, Klein, Hakko and SRA Solder/ Chemtronics product in stock,  , as well as Adafruit and RoBugz  ... but they also have several EXTECH and a 1054Z on the shelves, so at least our store has SOMEBODY in procurement that knows and cares what the electronics hobbyist wants and needs.

I was just musing yesterday that Sears (with their long history of mail-order service) was poised to take over the world when internet ordering became possible, but they have somehow let that slip away from them.  The local stores are closing one by one, despite having a good selection of products.

I went to a Micro Center in Columbus the last time I was passing through; they had tons and tons of printers but their hobbyist gear section was paltry and included essentially no test equipment (much like Fry's).  It seems very much to be dependent on the locale and management.

[mnementh]

I just showed that photo:

to SWMBO and declared: "SEE!  I'm not that bad!!" pointing to my modest setup.

Her response - "Well, if we pull out all your bits and pieces..."

I plaintively protested: "But that's only his work bench .... !!!" as she was leaving the room.


I'm never going to win, am I?

I did the same. I got one eyebrow which is the “not over my dead body” look 

There are advantages to no resident SWMBO and this is a classic example. 

If you really need to make a point just show SWMBO this video, that should get the results you seek.

Mr Carlson's arrangement works I suspect because he has his entire lab in the basement of his residence. I'll bet the SWMBO rules the roost in the upper floors. And that's great if you gots the room.

I suspect it has much more to do with the "museum-level" curation which extends even to his "TBD" stacks, and the fact that his collection not only supported his entire family in a better-than-average style for most of their lives, but also garnered considerable praise from the "normals" who came into contact with them over the years. 

My girlfriend and I were browsing a thrift store in San Antonio when I stumbled across a Tek 2230 in the housewares section. I gave her my best sad puppydwagon eyes and she bought it for me. Not only that, but she put up with it being torn apart all over the kitchen table for weeks amidst 24" x 36" printouts of the schematics from Anatek (which she also subsidized) and cafeteria trays of components laid out in order according to location while I waited for capacitors and diodes (I actually paid for those) to arrive. She tolerated the reek of popping tants (and my own reek, only reminding me every few days that I NEEDED to take a shower)  and curses as I rebuilt the infamous Seimens fan motor and the HV doubler array several times.   



"If I live through this, I'm gonna dance a jig..."


But it was when she congratulated me with genuine pride in her voice as I "danced my little jig" after I got it working that I knew I HAD to marry her. So I did.




Right now, my bench has NO ELECTRONICS WHATSOEVER on it, and is in fact is literally covered 6 feet high with mundane household articles I've been sorting for the last two weeks. This is from when I cleared it off to start my 3DPrinter project a few months ago... it's as good benchtop pr0n as you're going to get right now. 


mnem
We all have crap. If you're lucky enough to meet someone willing to put up with YOUR crap, you better grab on tight and NEVER let go.

[med6753]

Whenever my lady visits I try to explain to her what I've been doing in ref to TEA. She looks at me and says she'll never understand what all this stuff is and even after you explain it I still won't understand. Then she says "I'm glad you enjoy playing with this stuff because then I know you're not out playing with other women." 

Yep....she's a keeper! 

Hmm that doesn't quiet compute, but leave her in that ignorent bliss. There are a growing number of women in electronics these days and we have some among our forum members, some of whom are TEA members [emoji6]

When you know where she's been in her life and where she is today it makes perfect sense. I'm not going to go into details.....you'll just have to trust me.

I welcome women into our profession. The more the merrier including TEA. 

[Kosmic]

Typical evening's ebay surfing:
    Me: "Ooo! That's a good price, that's a very good price."
    SWMBO: "How big is it?"

Hehe same scenario here. She is not complaining about the money i spend or the frequency of my purchases. Its the size of the box I receive 

[mnementh]

Radio Shack has been going out of business for 20 years... I don't know whose idea it was to follow in Sears' "Brand Central" marketing model AFTER it destroyed the Sears-Roebuck brand, but they need to have their manberries ground into a fine paste in situ without anaesthesia.

If you're lucky enough to have one nearby, go check out Micro Center. My local one is laid out with very much the same sort of "It was organized when we put it out here" clutter that made Red Ten feel like home. They have NTE, Klein, Hakko and SRA Solder/ Chemtronics product in stock,  , as well as Adafruit and RoBugz  ... but they also have several EXTECH and a 1054Z on the shelves, so at least our store has SOMEBODY in procurement that knows and cares what the electronics hobbyist wants and needs.

I was just musing yesterday that Sears (with their long history of mail-order service) was poised to take over the world when internet ordering became possible, but they have somehow let that slip away from them.  The local stores are closing one by one, despite having a good selection of products.

I went to a Micro Center in Columbus the last time I was passing through; they had tons and tons of printers but their hobbyist gear section was paltry and included essentially no test equipment (much like Fry's).  It seems very much to be dependent on the locale and management.

Yup... Sears-Roebuck pretty much INVENTED the mail-order phenomenon as we know it; did you know that in the 1920s-40s you could buy a "meets all applicable building codes" panelized-construction kit home from their catalog? Price even included delivery by semi, and instructions showed you how to prepare and pour the concrete slab, and at what stage in that prep to call so that delivery would happen a day or two after the concrete was done curing. They must've had retired Army Corps of Engineers on staff figuring out and managing that supply chain. My grandfather bought one of the last old stock kits from a contractor auction in the early '50s and built it for my grandmother on Burr's Road; it is my understanding the house is still a local landmark in Burlington, NJ.

Yeah; a lot of that here too with Fry's AND Micro-Center. Micro-Center at least has the good sense to carry most of Inland's catalog, though... as long as they do, there will be a place to get a real soldering iron and proper electronics solder over the counter, not 10x overpriced suicide firestarters and 3mm dia Acid-core solder only good for fixing raingutters. 

While they DO stock a good selection of Inland filament (which their PLA+ is pretty damned good, if a few dollars overprices as it's rebranded eSun), they really need to punch the lights out of whomever ordered the stupid boutique $2000 3D printers and refuses to buy any more until they sell.    EVERYBODY knows you can buy a 95% assembled kit online for less than $500 now; hell, they're even on Amazon for that price.


mnem
*Home ALONE!!!*

[bd139]

Gah. Found out my garden is too small to erect my portable antenna to test with my RLB. And I can't exactly chuck a DG1022Z and a TDS210 in my bag and fire them up in a field due to power supply problems!

Need to buy more gear. Need a portable antenna analyser. Might see if I can recycle some crap to make one.

[Mr. Scram]

I think I've ascended to another level of TEA. I'm now finding random op-amps right outside my door. I'm taking it to be manna from the electronics gods.

[bd139]

Or revenge and they’re hoping you’re going to stand on them