Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[pansku]

Hi I'm new to this forum and this seemed to be the appropriate thread to post my little homelab.

I'm slowly gathering stuff to reach my goal of being able to do nearly "everything" from DC to ~4GHz at the comfort of my own place. I mostly do general electronics work and ham stuff, but I've let the metrology bug bite me  I'm in the design phase of building my own DCV, DCI and R calibrator inspired by the one in the LM399 thread. Luckily if I ever finish that thing, the cal lab at work has some serious piece of kit to verify that thing and also a friend of mine did his bachelor thesis for the NMI 

So far I've gotten everything on that rack (including the rack itself) for a total of less than 3k€ and it includes: Agilent E4406A VSA, Agilent E4432, R&S SME06 with pretty much all the options, Keithley 2015 and a HP 6632A.





In the next year or two I intend to fill the rack with some more power supplies, another bench DMM and a spectrum analyzer. For the oscilloscope I'm currently in the process of trying to get an old 1GHz LeCroy from work  In the meantime I can borrow an MDO4000 from there and have access to an VNA at my local ham club so I'm in no rush to fill that thing 

Too bad I don't have any cool projects to show off as they are mostly in state of being in the TODO-list and needing some finishing touches Maybe If I get some of them finally finished I can try and get the next summer job in the field of RF

[bd139]

Welcome! It looks like you're in the right place 

+1 for Wera as well 

[mnementh]

Nice rack. 

You certainly belong here.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292317854584

I'll just leave this here, where anybody might trip over it...   

mnem
No mercy. 

[Wolfgang]

Your setup looks like a well equipped ham living room. Nothing wrong with that. Most of this stuff looks a lot better than furniture anyway. 

[mnementh]

"an old 1GHz LeCroy from work..."

*sigh*

I remember being the same way about "my" 2465...

mnem
I suddenly feel very, very old. 

[Mr. Scram]

Hi I'm new to this forum and this seemed to be the appropriate thread to post my little homelab.

I'm slowly gathering stuff to reach my goal of being able to do nearly "everything" from DC to ~4GHz at the comfort of my own place. I mostly do general electronics work and ham stuff, but I've let the metrology bug bite me  I'm in the design phase of building my own DCV, DCI and R calibrator inspired by the one in the LM399 thread. Luckily if I ever finish that thing, the cal lab at work has some serious piece of kit to verify that thing and also a friend of mine did his bachelor thesis for the NMI 

So far I've gotten everything on that rack for a total of less than 3k€ and it includes: Agilent E4406A VSA, Agilent E4432, R&S SME06 with pretty much all the options, Keithley 2015 and a HP 6632A.

In the next year or two I intend to fill the rack with some more power supplies, another bench DMM and a spectrum analyzer. For the oscilloscope I'm currently in the process of trying to get an old 1GHz LeCroy from work  In the meantime I can borrow an MDO4000 from there and have access to an VNA at my local ham club so I'm in no rush to fill that thing 

Too bad I don't have any cool projects to show off as they are mostly in state of being in the TODO-list and needing some finishing touches Maybe If I get some of them finally finished I can try and get the next summer job in the field of RF

I've made some good deals in the past, but it seems I've got nothing on your dealmaking abilities. Welcome!

[pansku]

"an old 1GHz LeCroy from work..."

*sigh*

I remember being the same way about "my" 2465...

mnem
I suddenly feel very, very old. 

Eveything is relative. It's propably at least as old as I am and huge compared to even our MSO9104A. Too bad I can't recall the model number as it's thrown away in the corner of our labs basement where we usually store stuff related to our decades old products  That's why I want to save it from there but everything is a long and painful process when it comes to dealing with huge multinational companies

[Mr. Scram]

CE no longer exists. No new licenses being granted. Phasing out support in 2023. That's the only reason why. On embedded it wasn't a bad product. Better than NT which is a bloated turd.

Yep tell me about it. Had room in the car and the cash on me as well 

I know CE is on its way out, but it surprises me they went for newer incarnations. Microsoft isn't entirely predictable with their embedded offerings and it seemed Keysight isn't entirely satisfied with the products either. They really don't seem to like Linux and it being open source at Keysight. Granted, switching your team over isn't trivial either.

[mnementh]

I'm going to copy/paste from an earlier PSA on the subject, since we have some new faces and huge pics are happening again...



pansku... (and everybody else... this drives us crazy worse than 10-layer nested quotes) please, please, for the love of all that is good in this world... PLEASE don't post/quote  big-ass pics as-is. Resize them before you post; all it takes is to add " width=80" (or whatever size is reasonable in pixels) after the "img" in the image tag. Just quote this message to see the exact syntax; it is SO crazy easy.

      

      

Not everybody has the patience to edit whole lists of images like I do; however, if you want to embed a single row of nice neat images as thumbs, you can use " height=80" instead and put the images all on the same line with no carriage return / [ENTER] button. Again, quote this message to see the exact syntax. Once you get used to remembering to do it, the process is pretty easy cut/paste.

mnem
This PSA brought to you by The Society for the Prevention of Parsley Placement on People's Plates in Public Places.

[pansku]

I'm going to copy/paste from an earlier PSA on the subject, since we have some new faces and huge pics are happening again...



pansku... (and everybody else... this drives us crazy worse than 10-layer nested quotes) please, please, for the love of all that is good in this world... PLEASE don't post/quote  big-ass pics as-is. Resize them before you post; all it takes is to add " width=80" (or whatever size is reasonable in pixels) after the "img" in the image tag. Just quote this message to see the exact syntax; it is SO crazy easy.

      

      

Not everybody has the patience to edit whole lists of images like I do; however, if you want to embed a single row of nice neat images as thumbs, you can use " height=80" instead and put the images all on the same line with no carriage return / [ENTER] button. Again, quote this message to see the exact syntax. Once you get used to remembering to do it, the process is pretty easy cut/paste.

mnem
This PSA brought to you by The Society for the Prevention of Parsley Placement on People's Plates in Public Places.

Sorry I didn't see that it breaks the layout on my phone  I think the pictures are fixed now (I hope) 

[bd139]

Another victim of the picture dragon 

[mnementh]

"an old 1GHz LeCroy from work..."

*sigh*

I remember being the same way about "my" 2465...

mnem
I suddenly feel very, very old. 

Eveything is relative. It's propably at least as old as I am and huge compared to even our MSO9104A. Too bad I can't recall the model number as it's thrown away in the corner of our labs basement where we usually store stuff related to our decades old products  That's why I want to save it from there but everything is a long and painful process when it comes to dealing with huge multinational companies

I know EXACTLY what you're talking about; which is why I was suddenly so wistful.

"My" 2465 was new on my bench, and still current when it became mine. I took it as spoils of war in a successful product campaign; we were supposed to get bonuses, but I offered my boss to take the pink slip on my scope instead. For him it was a quick hashmark in a column, I'm sure. But he got to keep my bonus, and I got a scope that was worth much more (at least to me) than its 4-years-depreciated value. Win-win.

mnem
"...an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age."

[Cerebus]

Whenever I hear you talk about software, I'm reminded of this XKCD now. Especially the part about blockchain. 

Whenever you hear blockchain as a solution from someone say "What about a Merkle tree?" to them and watch their face go blank. That blankness is concrete proof that they are actually a fashionista, not any kind of engineer or scientist.

As someone who once spent some time in the late 80's actually writing AI tools that sold commercially to big banks, insurers and the like (in FORTRAN no less) during the first wave of AI as fashion I'm more than a little gobsmacked at the current fashionable wave of "Ai will do everything". It's almost as if the tech industry is incapable of learning anything from history or never employs anybody old enough to remember 'last time around'.

[mnementh]

Sorry I didn't see that it breaks the layout on my phone  I think the pictures are fixed now (I hope) 

Nothing to be sorry about... I know you didn't know; that's why I presented it as a PSA. Just like the last time...

Another victim of the picture dragon 

LOL... Hey, I don't bite... without permission. Usually.

And I've gotten much better about flaming too. But hey... occasionally, even a dwagon sneezes.   };=)~~~<

mnem
...and the next time.

[Cerebus]

Nice rack. 

You certainly belong here.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292317854584

I'll just leave this here, where anybody might trip over it...   

mnem
No mercy. 

In the "You might also like" slot from there: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Design-TP340-Triple-Output-DC-Power-Supply-0-32V-Does-Not-Power-On/302671890804

[Wolfgang]

CE in Keysight must be a while ago. In their current SAs, VNAs and S Scopes they use Windows 7 Embedded or 10 IOT. Their RF generators seem to us a (proprietary) Linux.
In fact, their Methusalem equpment used Windows 2000 and XP. I've never seen a CE, personally.

[mnementh]

Whenever I hear you talk about software, I'm reminded of this XKCD now. Especially the part about blockchain. 

Whenever you hear blockchain as a solution from someone say "What about a Merkle tree?" to them and watch their face go blank. That blankness is concrete proof that they are actually a fashionista, not any kind of engineer or scientist.

As someone who once spent some time in the late 80's actually writing AI tools that sold commercially to big banks, insurers and the like (in FORTRAN no less) during the first wave of AI as fashion I'm more than a little gobsmacked at the current fashionable wave of "Ai will do everything". It's almost as if the tech industry is incapable of learning anything from history or never employs anybody old enough to remember 'last time around'.

This is not exclusive to the tech industry; this state of "history-lessness" is a by-product of how mega-monopolies work. It has been deliberately created by TPTB to protect corporate entities from the fallout of their horrendous actions in general.

They pass on their demands to their platoons of MBAs, whose job it is to either keep the skeletons in the closet or to carry them as far away from the guilty as possible. The MBAs are the corporate equivalent of the Langoliers; sweeping away all traces, and even memories of previous crimes to make room for new ones, or more often, new recursions of the same crimes. The only thing that changes is the buzzwords.

mnem
Ever-Changing buzzwords=Global SEP field.

[mnementh]

Nice rack. 

You certainly belong here.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292317854584

I'll just leave this here, where anybody might trip over it...   

mnem
No mercy. 

In the "You might also like" slot from there: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Design-TP340-Triple-Output-DC-Power-Supply-0-32V-Does-Not-Power-On/302671890804

SHHHHH!!! I'm hoping that one will still be there when I have a little discretionary funds. 

That's why I offered the 6622 up as a sacrifice... and to keep me from buying BOTH of them when I already have MOUNTAINS of single-purpose power supplies I need to get rid of...

mnem
*I've been hoist upon my own petard...*

[tggzzz]

Yes. Don't start me on fucking toasters.

Don't start me on dishwashers.

I have nice old dishwasher with two knobs and the metalbasket held together by Sugru. One knob selects 1/4 programs, the other rotates as it goes throuch the cycles. I can understand that, and see what is happening, and change it when I need to.

My parents have one that has three buttons and three LEDs. The LEDs don't indicate where in the cycle it is, and the buttons are mode-based monstrosities. The button marked "start" will,

• if pressed for long enough start a cycle
• unless it is already started when it stops the cycle
• or if pressed even longer it aborts the cycle

Clearly the designers, and I use that word loosely, think it is entirely reasonable to have to press the MS Windoze "start" button in order to turn off the machine.

The number of times I've found people have taken the "clean" stuff out and left a big puddle of water in the bottom beggard description. I've even seen that with greasy water in the bottom, so cleanliness is clearly an aspiration rather than a reality.

Edit: relatives have finally buggered off (woohoo), the kids are amusing themselves now after massive sugar crash so I'm going to go and play with RF amps and analyse them in the frequency domain. It's wierd but until you get an SA you don't realise how blind you are to the workings of some circuits. Revisiting older things I built from now to fix my brain damage from time domain only measurements. Amazingly useful bit of kit.

Yes indeed. Until you have a craving to see the phase-frequency plots as well as the magnitude-frequency plots, so that you can do loop stabillity margin measurements etc.

The you realise you need a Vector Analyser rather than merely a Scalar Analyser. The you realise you need to "de-embed the UUT", which requires cal kits and the sacrifice of your firstborn (relatives' firstborns don't count).

[mnementh]

Whenever I hear you talk about software, I'm reminded of this XKCD now. Especially the part about blockchain. 

Whenever you hear blockchain as a solution from someone say "What about a Merkle tree?" to them and watch their face go blank. That blankness is concrete proof that they are actually a fashionista, not any kind of engineer or scientist.

Well, now you're added to the list of people who make me think of that XKCD.    

I'll admit my ignorance; I went and Guugled "Merkle Tree."

Yup. Same exact structure. Amusing that it is a pyramid, which structure in association with business nearly universally means some form of fraud that hasn't been busted yet.

My Kung-fu is weak; I never could wrap my brain properly around, so never quite trusted the results of a hash. Arrays and tables I get; even nested tables and arrays, though they make my brain hurt. Hashes are like Quaternary math; there's still some quantum-entanglement type voodoo goes on between INPUT and OUTPUT.

That by its nature makes me believe the concept as a whole is inherently insecure, which the recent devaluation of crypto-currency in general just as it is gaining some measure of general acceptance (a "coincidence" not the least bit surprising to me) is just another in a long list of iterative reinforcements of that distrust.

mnem
Cassandra got nuthin' on me.

[Mr. Scram]

CE in Keysight must be a while ago. In their current SAs, VNAs and S Scopes they use Windows 7 Embedded or 10 IOT. Their RF generators seem to us a (proprietary) Linux.
In fact, their Methusalem equpment used Windows 2000 and XP. I've never seen a CE, personally.

Their multimeters like the 34461A use CE. It makes more sense for the bigger devices to use versions of Windows. I was unaware they used Linux already, maybe they're starting to shift that way.

[mnementh]

Yes. Don't start me on fucking toasters.

Don't start me on dishwashers.

I have nice old dishwasher with two knobs and the metalbasket held together by Sugru. One knob selects 1/4 programs, the other rotates as it goes through the cycles. I can understand that, and see what is happening, and change it when I need to.

My parents have one that has three buttons and three LEDs. The LEDs don't indicate where in the cycle it is, and the buttons are mode-based monstrosities. The button marked "start" will,

• if pressed for long enough start a cycle
• unless it is already started when it stops the cycle
• or if pressed even longer it aborts the cycle

Clearly the designers, and I use that word loosely, think it is entirely reasonable to have to press the MS Windoze "start" button in order to turn off the machine.

The number of times I've found people have taken the "clean" stuff out and left a big puddle of water in the bottom beggard description. I've even seen that with greasy water in the bottom, so cleanliness is clearly an aspiration rather than a reality.

I worked as a tech in a ding & dent appliance warehouse outlet for a while when I went back to school; I know EXACTLY the control panel you're talking about.

It invaded EVERY product Whirlpool made; even the Platinum line KitchenAid weren't spared its evil. And then they tried to take it to Laundry Division, but people stayed away in droves, so they reversed course on that in less than a year when LG outsold them 20:1. Funny how the most popular Laundry products of the last decade are all single or dual knob designs just as you describe, even though they may be encoders with LED "progress" indicators.

No idea why the importance of a progress indicator never got kicked back over to Kitchen Division... aside from the inherent, codified stupidity of mega-corporations in general.

Another case of NOT doing reasonable usability studies before making sweeping changes to a design, plain & simple.

mnem
w00t! Rain has let up, I can go outside & suffer again!!!

[mnementh]

CE in Keysight must be a while ago. In their current SAs, VNAs and S Scopes they use Windows 7 Embedded or 10 IOT. Their RF generators seem to us a (proprietary) Linux.
In fact, their Methusalem equpment used Windows 2000 and XP. I've never seen a CE, personally.

Their multimeters like the 34461A use CE. It makes more sense for the bigger devices to use versions of Windows. I was unaware they used Linux already, maybe they're starting to shift that way.

The combination of ARM processors and Linux licensing costs does make that very attractive... I'm sure we'll see instruments with Android on them soon. It has already invaded RC modeling. 

mnem
"Holy mother of god and all her wacky nephews..."

[Wolfgang]

Do the new ones like 34465A and 34470 also use CE, then ?
The generators I meant are the EXG N15171B and N5172B 0 to 3GHz.  When they start up it looks a bit Linuxy and its way too fast for Windows, but there is no touchscreen (I like that) and handling is like in the old days with a legion of pushputtons plus a dial.

[Mr. Scram]

The combination of ARM processors and Linux licensing costs does make that very attractive... I'm sure we'll see instruments with Android on them soon. It has already invaded RC modeling. 

mnem
"Holy mother of god and all her wacky nephews..."

I know Keysight worried about Linux and essentially giving competitors a free pass if they're forced to release sources. I'm not saying that's a fully valid worry, mind. Chinese manufacturers couldn't care less about both that and device security. They don't have anything to lose and are nearly impossible to hold accountable.

Finally remember that the "S" in "IoT" stands for "security".