Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

After a demo like this, who on earth would like to mow his lawn in the classic way ? 

Well, you don't have to do it the classic way. This flier doesn't even require as much skill as Tareq Alsaadi.

[bitseeker]

Throw away the duracell, but keep the 87V in good shape. I love this adorable meter, and I plan to inherit it to my children should my time has come. 

No Duracell! Thank you very much.

[bitseeker]

Ok then, here are just 3 photos I took at RAF Marham today, as mentioned before, only saw 3 planes all day, thats from 10am till 5.30pm, bitterly cold when the sun went in on account of the wind but pleasant enough when the sun did shine.

This airfield is one of the worst for viewing whats going on, its brilliantly hidden from general view, you could drive right by it and not see or know that their was airfield there at all. Part of the day was taken up with exploring ways of getting close enough to see anything at all but I did find some nice areas where access was a bit easier so I now know where I can go for closer shots next visit.

Sweet! Always enjoy your photos, Spec.

[mnementh]

SNIP)
The 87V is not a dual display is it? So I'm kinda wondering where it is going to fit in your bench, I mean as far as I can see it doesn't do anything that the other two can't do (ignoring the dual display for now). Yes the Fluke is an excellent meter and has excellent protection and build quality the same as the 867, mind you for that kind of money you paid, I'd probably have snapped it up, but then I like meters full stop.

Edit: Just noticed, 4 more pages and we have reached 700 pages of TEA goodness, hmmmm.

There's a lot of stuff you just don't see until you open them up; like much thicker molding and glas-reinforced resin shell, and considerably heavier PCB, etc. And other things like the use of Delrin in the rotary switch instead of cheaper plastics, which results in a switch that still turns smooth and light with firm detents even 30 years old, and having a separate, front replaceable socket module that is splash & dust-proof sealed against the outer housing, etc. Fluke often designs with a glas-reinforced plastic sub-frame around the PCB, so its rigidity isn't dependent entirely on the outer housing, which is evidenced by the "feel" when you plug in leads and handle the knob & buttons.

And while Brymen lays claim to a higher voltage rating, I suspect Fluke's choice not to do so has much less to do with the quality of their frontend than being much more conservative in what they're willing to call safe for a device that a man will be holding in his bare hands. I'll admit that MAY be personal bias, however.

Other things are like bd is finding now... Fluke has a reputation for excellent visibility on their LCDs, especially under poor lighting that is well-earned. Same with the quality of the backlight.

So Feature-wise & bang/buck, yeah... the Brymen is a better deal. But the 87x is a tool you can EXPECT to hand down to your kids... even if it is a daily-use tool. Not sure I believe that of the Brymen.

There's a LOT more to build quality than JUST "specs". 

mnem
ZZZzzzZZZzzz...

[bd139]

@Specmaster: nice photos. I love the GR4's. Old but still very capable. I imagine this is towards the end of the lifecycle now we have F-35's arriving.

@bitseeker: hover mowers are a con perpetrated by a cruel bastard many years ago.

@Mnementh: summing up your post, it's not always the feature load that is a winner, but the details and use cases. For example I was playing with auto-hold last night on the 87V and the U1241C. The BM867s doesn't get a look in here because the hold literally just holds when you press the button.

Auto hold is a neat little feature which allows you to focus on where you are sticking the probes. Basically you turn it on and poke something and when the reading is stable and non zero, it will beep and hold the value. You can then disconnect the probes and read the answer back. This is great for poking around inside scopes and electrical installations where you have to be careful where you are putting your hands and probes or it's dead o clock.

So....

U1241C: not enabled by default. It's does have auto hold however. Turn the meter off. Hold shift down and turn the meter on to enter menu. Go to entry AH. Default value is 005.d. Change this to E by pressing the range button. Change the hold count to however many counts you want. Turn meter off, turn meter on press hold, poke something, realise you have to hit it twice, poke something again. Beep, done. Then you have to press it again to reset it.

87V: press hold. poke something, beep, done. Poke something else, beep, done.

And there you go!

[Specmaster]

Hmm, I'm entirely convinced that it's only the Fluke that you could hand down  to your kids. The Brymen stacks up pretty well in the construction stakes against my Fluke 25s and 27s and they are built to withstand almost anything in life. Sure there are some obvious signs of cost cutting in areas where it was considered possible to do so, such as the body, the Fluke certainly has the thicker plastics by far but then, the plastics on the 25's and 27's have to take all of the knocks of everyday life whereas the 867 has a nice thick strong rubbery bumper that wraps around the meter to take those knocks. Both use self tapping screws to hold the body together but the battery cover has metal threaded inserts moulded into the body to retain the battery cover which is fair enough given thats the only area of the case you would expect to gain access to in its life. The Brymen generally uses thinner plastics but it does so with more braces built into it and double lipped meeting flanges that more than doubles the distance any unlikely arc etc would have to take to escape the enclosure. Both are gasketed at the meeting surfaces to help resist the ingress of liquids and dust etc.

Infact on terms of overall construction between my Flukes and the 867 I would say the only area where the 867 cannot compete is the kick stand, it is certainly the weakest one and cannot even try to compete on the versatility of the Fluke 25. and 27s whose stand can be removed and reattached in such a fashion that it doubles as a hanger for the meter.

Unless you need to replace a fuse, there should never be a reason to strip any of these meters down beyond removing the battery covers. so in terms of being able to pass either meter onto your kids when the time comes is that both of them could be expected to do that satisfactorily.

As to things like the LCD screen, backlight etc, then these are things that I expect are going to be fairly fluid as the screens on my flukes do vary in their readability stakes between the same models, backlight, I agree with bd there but its still more than adequate for the job. I'm not too sure of Brymens thinking on that aspect as I have a very cheap meter with a really brilliant backlight on it but the rest of the meter nah, its crap.

So in essence then, would I expect my Brymen 867 to last as long as my Flukes, hell YES, what is my goto daily driver meter, the 867 without any doubt.

Would I buy a Fluke like the 189 / 289 you'd better believe I would if the price is right, infact if bd hadn't snapped up that 189, then I would have  as it was real bargain calling my name but I was away from my computer at the time.

[bd139]

Yes to note here, the BM867S is stacking up fairly well against the U1241C and 87V so far. At the price point it's well under half the price of the cheaper of those so you can't really complain. Build quality is excellent as well. The 87V's kick stand is about the same as the BM867s as well.

Actually the only reason I got that 87V is because my software picked it up as a statistical outlier on pricing and told me I should probably buy it bloody quick. In fact the total cycle time from identification and classification to purchase was about 6 minutes. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't own one

[med6753]

Gee, I wish that my Fluke 87 Series 1 (cira 1997) had a "nice bright and easy to read LCD display". That's my only complaint with it. It has to be at the right angle or it's washed out.

[bd139]

LCDs have improved a hell of a lot in the last few years. I assume they have changed the parts over time.

[Specmaster]

@Specmaster: nice photos. I love the GR4's. Old but still very capable. I imagine this is towards the end of the lifecycle now we have F-35's arriving.

Thanks, the GR4 is still a very capable plane indeed and I suspect that we are only retiring them now because of the F-35's but thats a subject you don't want to get me started on, I seriously doubt that it's going to be anywhere near as serviceable as the GR4's nor the Harriers or the Jaguars as it is just too complicated for its own good and I fully expect that come the time when we need them, they will be going unserviceable or "Tech" as the industry word is for broke down. Speaking of Jaguars, I know of 1 Jaguar that is now in the hands of a civilian operation and it is expected to flying displays again within 2 years, so that will great to see that, an afterburning jet doing air shows, great.

@bitseeker: hover mowers are a con perpetrated by a cruel bastard many years ago.

Not too sure what your saying here, I have used them successfully now for a number of years, and they do work well.

@Mnementh: summing up your post, it's not always the feature load that is a winner, but the details and use cases. For example I was playing with auto-hold last night on the 87V and the U1241C. The BM867s doesn't get a look in here because the hold literally just holds when you press the button.

Auto hold is a neat little feature which allows you to focus on where you are sticking the probes. Basically you turn it on and poke something and when the reading is stable and non zero, it will beep and hold the value. You can then disconnect the probes and read the answer back. This is great for poking around inside scopes and electrical installations where you have to be careful where you are putting your hands and probes or it's dead o clock.

So....

U1241C: not enabled by default. It's does have auto hold however. Turn the meter off. Hold shift down and turn the meter on to enter menu. Go to entry AH. Default value is 005.d. Change this to E by pressing the range button. Change the hold count to however many counts you want. Turn meter off, turn meter on press hold, poke something, realise you have to hit it twice, poke something again. Beep, done. Then you have to press it again to reset it.

87V: press hold. poke something, beep, done. Poke something else, beep, done.

And there you go!

Agree 100% here, even the Fluke 25 and 27 has that feature, it will beep and and hold the last stable voltage, even if that voltage is a lower value, eg, connect it  to a AD584-M reference tool and each time you press the button to advance to the next voltage in the loop irrespective if the last voltage was 10V and the next to be selected is 2.5V, it will beep and hold the last voltage applied to the meter, very useful. That's a feature the 867 is sadly lacking here.

[Specmaster]

Yes to note here, the BM867S is stacking up fairly well against the U1241C and 87V so far. At the price point it's well under half the price of the cheaper of those so you can't really complain. Build quality is excellent as well. The 87V's kick stand is about the same as the BM867s as well.

Actually the only reason I got that 87V is because my software picked it up as a statistical outlier on pricing and told me I should probably buy it bloody quick. In fact the total cycle time from identification and classification to purchase was about 6 minutes. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't own one

Hell, it would have been a race to grab it if I'd seen it as well, at that price, even without the discount you had it would have been a great buy and great little earner back on Ebay at a later date.

[Mr. Scram]

@Specmaster: nice photos. I love the GR4's. Old but still very capable. I imagine this is towards the end of the lifecycle now we have F-35's arriving.

@bitseeker: hover mowers are a con perpetrated by a cruel bastard many years ago.

@Mnementh: summing up your post, it's not always the feature load that is a winner, but the details and use cases. For example I was playing with auto-hold last night on the 87V and the U1241C. The BM867s doesn't get a look in here because the hold literally just holds when you press the button.

Auto hold is a neat little feature which allows you to focus on where you are sticking the probes. Basically you turn it on and poke something and when the reading is stable and non zero, it will beep and hold the value. You can then disconnect the probes and read the answer back. This is great for poking around inside scopes and electrical installations where you have to be careful where you are putting your hands and probes or it's dead o clock.

So....

U1241C: not enabled by default. It's does have auto hold however. Turn the meter off. Hold shift down and turn the meter on to enter menu. Go to entry AH. Default value is 005.d. Change this to E by pressing the range button. Change the hold count to however many counts you want. Turn meter off, turn meter on press hold, poke something, realise you have to hit it twice, poke something again. Beep, done. Then you have to press it again to reset it.

87V: press hold. poke something, beep, done. Poke something else, beep, done.

And there you go!

That's weird, I have the feeling that the autohold feature on the U1272A is much more convenient if a little slower.

[bd139]

@Specmaster: nice photos. I love the GR4's. Old but still very capable. I imagine this is towards the end of the lifecycle now we have F-35's arriving.

Thanks, the GR4 is still a very capable plane indeed and I suspect that we are only retiring them now because of the F-35's but thats a subject you don't want to get me started on, I seriously doubt that it's going to be anywhere near as serviceable as the GR4's nor the Harriers or the Jaguars as it is just too complicated for its own good and I fully expect that come the time when we need them, they will be going unserviceable or "Tech" as the industry word is for broke down. Speaking of Jaguars, I know of 1 Jaguar that is now in the hands of a civilian operation and it is expected to flying displays again within 2 years, so that will great to see that, an afterburning jet doing air shows, great.

Yes I've certainly got my problems with the F-35 as well. Main one being encryption key handling which means the US can pull the plug on us and the whole fleet instantly. And the other one is the relatively unpublished telemetry that Lockheed Martin use on production flight vehicles. I understand that we've had some of our best people on those problems though doing things on the sly. Ho ho ho.

Note that the GR4's are being "stored" and not decomissioned. Everyone is a bit unconvinced about the F-35s as well.

Good to hear the Jaguar is lkely to be seen in the air again. Hope it doesn't sit and rot.

@bitseeker: hover mowers are a con perpetrated by a cruel bastard many years ago.

Not too sure what your saying here, I have used them successfully now for a number of years, and they do work well.

I let my grass grow too long for them to be effective other than for inducing back aches because I'm lazy and hate gardening. Have moved to a fairly powerful and dirt cheap Bosch rotary.

@Mnementh: summing up your post, it's not always the feature load that is a winner, but the details and use cases. For example I was playing with auto-hold last night on the 87V and the U1241C. The BM867s doesn't get a look in here because the hold literally just holds when you press the button.

Auto hold is a neat little feature which allows you to focus on where you are sticking the probes. Basically you turn it on and poke something and when the reading is stable and non zero, it will beep and hold the value. You can then disconnect the probes and read the answer back. This is great for poking around inside scopes and electrical installations where you have to be careful where you are putting your hands and probes or it's dead o clock.

So....

U1241C: not enabled by default. It's does have auto hold however. Turn the meter off. Hold shift down and turn the meter on to enter menu. Go to entry AH. Default value is 005.d. Change this to E by pressing the range button. Change the hold count to however many counts you want. Turn meter off, turn meter on press hold, poke something, realise you have to hit it twice, poke something again. Beep, done. Then you have to press it again to reset it.

87V: press hold. poke something, beep, done. Poke something else, beep, done.

And there you go!

Agree 100% here, even the Fluke 25 and 27 has that feature, it will beep and and hold the last stable voltage, even if that voltage is a lower value, eg, connect it  to a AD584-M reference tool and each time you press the button to advance to the next voltage in the loop irrespective if the last voltage was 10V and the next to be selected is 2.5V, it will beep and hold the last voltage applied to the meter, very useful. That's a feature the 867 is sadly lacking here.

But at less than half the price, can we complain? Probably not

[bd139]

That's weird, I have the feeling that the autohold feature on the U1272A is much more convenient if a little slower.

Yeah I think the U1272A uses different software layout and default settings mainly though which probably work better for the end user.

[Mr. Scram]

The F35 seems to be one of those clusterfucks that everyone is aware of, but nobody is brave enough to pull the plug on. It's too big to fail, even if it's failed in many regards already.

[Specmaster]

Yes I've certainly got my problems with the F-35 as well. Main one being encryption key handling which means the US can pull the plug on us and the whole fleet instantly. And the other one is the relatively unpublished telemetry that Lockheed Martin use on production flight vehicles. I understand that we've had some of our best people on those problems though doing things on the sly. Ho ho ho.

Note that the GR4's are being "stored" and not decomissioned. Everyone is a bit unconvinced about the F-35s as well.

From what I understand, it has more to do with the commercial value of them as we are the only country to be withdrawing them from service, so I fully expect that we will hear that Germany has purchased these from us for spare parts, something we have been doing for years now is robbing airframes to keep others in the air as we don't have enough spare parts or the cash to purchase new parts. Rumour has it that many of the newer planes, Typhoon and F-35's have brand new planes already consigned to being used as parts mules for the rest of the fleet and they only have delivery air miles on them 

I let my grass grow too long for them to be effective other than for inducing back aches because I'm lazy and hate gardening. Have moved to a fairly powerful and dirt cheap Bosch rotary.

Yes thats true and a feeling I know well, but after that initial cut each year its much easier.

But at less than half the price, can we complain? Probably not

Won't catch me complaining, the price was really sweet and I love this meter, its so capable and feels right in the hand as well.

[Specmaster]

The F35 seems to be one of those clusterfucks that everyone is aware of, but nobody is brave enough to pull the plug on. It's too big to fail, even if it's failed in many regards already.

I think you're right, I understand that it cannot be refuelled even without plugging a laptop into it and then the APU has be on for a certain amount of time. No chance of hot refuelling them like the did in WW2 and the F15 and F16's still do today. Been to Lakenheath and have often seen them fly out on training sortie fully armed with training munitions, come back empty having discharged their munitions, taxi round to a check point, where they change crews, refuelled and rearmed without shutting down the engine and take off again. Good luck doing that with a F-35.

[bd139]

That feature comes in planeOS 14

The sick twisted thing is this: https://web.archive.org/web/20111219004314/http://journal.thedacs.com:80/issue/53/158

C and C++. Why C and C++. Are they fucking drunk?

Edit: to be fair, a lot of warfare these days is being done by reapers. The arena is changing. Perhaps the F35 fits in there better. I don't know.

Keeping it TEA - just got my box of parts from LCSC. Ordered 24/9. Arrived 2/10. 5 days of that was this end. Not bad. Everything is neatly labelled and in resealable anti static bags.

[Specmaster]

Yes, I think being drunk is the only explanation 

Meanwhile back in TEA land, I've just taken delivery of some stackable 4mm banana plugs from Banggood, total crap they are  The "cage" on most of them once plugged in has so much "grip" that the plug as a whole can be freely spun while in the socket  good luck trying pass any current through the fuckers. Complained to BG and they want to see a photo which I have explained to them is impossible to do as their contact form refuses to accept the photo file stating it must be below 2Mb but it is only 774Kb in size 

My Bose sounddock arrived this morning (still not responded to my email sent 4 days ago though  ) and after swapping out the 30 pin connector is working a treat.

[med6753]

Working on the military Tek 7603 to try to figure out the source of the visible retrace on the CRT. I ruled out a few items out but still haven't tracked down the cause.

What's a real PITA is the manual I have is incomplete and I have to refer to a civilian 7603 manual and there are quite a few differences. But I'm muddling through it.

CRT bias: has absolutely no effect. Trace signal vs retrace pretty much follow each other consistently. Yes, the retrace is duller and at lower intensity settings can't be seen. But a week ago there was no retrace visible and now there is. So something has gone FUBAR..

Power supply: the -50V reference was at -49.1V. Out of spec. S/B -49.9V to -50.1V. Adjusted it. Now -50.0V and all supply voltages are perfect including ripple. Made no difference in the retrace.

Basically what should happen is during the retrace cycle of the sweep the CRT should be in full cut off. Apparently it's not...only partial cut off. So I gotta dive into the horizontal and time base circuits and figure out where the issue is. But not now. Tired, gotta get some sleep.

 

[mnementh]

After a demo like this, who on earth would like to mow his lawn in the classic way ? 

Well, you don't have to do it the classic way. This flier doesn't even require as much skill as Tareq Alsaadi.

Holy BLEEEP!ing BLEEEP!crackers... That thing still exists? I thought for sure it would have been outlawed by now.   

Because you know, the unholy union of a hovercraft and a brush hawg is something I WANT LURKING in my garage... waiting... plotting... conspiring with the BBQ and clothes dryer... 

mnem
Fun fact: Clothes washers and clothes dryers are in fact two completely different, unrelated species. From different planets. Neither of them Earth.

[bd139]

That reminded me of this for some reason:

[Wolfgang]

For the most awkward beer ad is

https://youtu.be/AncH5cpUBjQ

So much to TEA. An aside problem: I am still fiddling my test loan E5061B-3L5 VNA. In VNA mode (S ports), everything is awesome,
but the LF ports do not deliver any meaningful calibration. Any simple trick I just missed out ?

Thanks
  Wolfgang

[mnementh]

Yes, I think being drunk is the only explanation 

Meanwhile back in TEA land, I've just taken delivery of some stackable 4mm banana plugs from Banggood, total crap they are  The "cage" on most of them once plugged in has so much "grip" that the plug as a whole can be freely spun while in the socket  good luck trying pass any current through the fuckers. Complained to BG and they want to see a photo which I have explained to them is impossible to do as their contact form refuses to accept the photo file stating it must be below 2Mb but it is only 774Kb in size 

My Bose sounddock arrived this morning (still not responded to my email sent 4 days ago though  ) and after swapping out the 30 pin connector is working a treat.

Open the file in Paint. Change the properties to 24-bit color, even if it says it already is. Save it under a different name as a .jpg

I read this as a "workaround" ages ago; it goes back to some stupid setting in some popular server software for over a decade... I've run into it before randomly, and on the BG customer service portal not too long ago.

I love my old Bose. It's got 1st gen iPwn charm.

And now I've converted it to 18650 power, it fills the entire garage with sound for the whole afternoon on a charge; 2 afternoons if I keep it below teeth-rrrattling volume. 

That reminded me of this for some reason:

Ohhh... that was AWESOME!!! The best part was the uwave at the end!!!  Too bad it was for Foster's...
mnem
"Foster's: Australian for 'ballast'."

[mnementh]

For anyone who's interested I documented the entire teardown and repair of the Tek 2465 DMS fan motor here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-2465b-oscilloscope-teardown/msg1861713/#msg1861713

Dammit, med... I SWORE to myself I wasn't going to let me get sucked into this. 

While "cogitating" on the throne (like most men, I seem to do my best thinking there), I came to the contusion that if ANYONE was going to get into the nuts & bolts of fixing the motor itself so I didn't have to, it would be YOU.

Boy, did you show ME. 

So then my inner TinkerDwagon starts whispering in my ear... "You know you have a lovely virginal SMPS in the "NASA 2465"... you can do the teardown and have pictures before lunchtime..."

Now I'm up to my elbows in Seimens and PCBs.   

I hate you. Cordially. 

mnem
"I have a love/hate relationship with my workbench. I love to tinker there; it hates to see me with more than $10 in my pocket." ~ mnem

My 2465 Fan Motor Service article is completed; I posted it in the 2465B Teardown thread right after med's article. Lots of pictures, and motor resurrection techniques & tips that should be valuable for lots of other scenarios. 

I believe it's time for lunch.

mnem
"Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so." Ford Prefect