Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Oh, I didn't realize that the person who showed up wasn't a wimp...it was a wimpette. 

[mnementh]

    I've build a bit of RF stuff using that 1.27mm raster protoboard, it has a solid ground plane at its backside.
It's not specified in any way, but running a longer trace by connecting a row of the small squares results in near enough to 50 Ohm impedance for things to work.

That stuff always looks interesting but I can’t bring myself to pay for it

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=192269

I've seen the stuff used on some project videos... but had never taken the time to track it down until now. Look what I stumbled across during a search for "breadboard". I know it isn't relevant to the conversation at hand; in fact it is really almost the antithesis of tuned HF. But damn... that thing is gorgeous, and a delightful diversion over the morning cuppa. 

That's a lot of scopes 

There; fixed that for ya. 

Hahaha     I've cancelled that. Screw it. Keeping them.

Well, grab these 3 as well and arrange them all in a pattern so that when you aren't using them, they could become your dining table. I'm sure SWMBO would love a distinctive table like that, a designer table, start a new craze right there. 

Actually, 3 of them on end with an oval glass tabletop across the faces would be exquisitely TEAworthy... would beat Molinelli's coffee table all hollow.

Especially if you had them playing oscillioscope music / videos... *Makes mental note*

They're too heavy, I can't lift them. 

In my mind I'm seeing a Rocky style training montage with someone bench pressing two scopes tied to the ends of a broom handle...

Apparently the kid who showed up at bd139's place couldn't bench press a flea. 

No, but she could carry two carrier bags though 

"What? These aren't made of papier-mâché? EVERYTHING in my world is supposed to be made of papier-mâché!!!"    

mnem

[pansku]

Working hard does pay off  Also got 3 500MHz probes and a 250MHz probe for this. They were literally stashed away in a bomb shelter. Now the downsides: It's a LeCroy, the touch screen seems bust and the rotary encoders seem to skip some beats 

Anyone happen to have a service manual for a LeCroy WavePro 7100 running Windows 2000 NT?



Also got some help to organize my rack. Man, these things a way too heavy to work with alone.

[mnementh]

What the EFF were they DOING in that bomb shelter, that they needed this kind of gear? Making bombs? 

Speaking from experience as a repair tech, look into the ribbon connectors where the touchscreen connects to the rest of the system. 

Encoders do get blinky with disuse; DeOxIt or similar plastic-safe contact cleaner CAN bring them back to service, IF you can get it into the working bits. If all of the encoders are blinky, the problem may rather be noisy power, though... and that can also make a touchscreen non-responsive.

Good luck, and welcome to the nuthouse!!!

mnem
*Almost alive*

[pansku]

What the EFF were they DOING in that bomb shelter, that they needed this kind of gear? Making bombs? 

Speaking from experience as a repair tech, look into the ribbon connectors where the touchscreen connects to the rest of the system. 

Encoders do get blinky with disuse; DeOxIt or similar plastic-safe contact cleaner CAN bring them back to service, IF you can get it into the working bits. If all of the encoders are blinky, the problem may rather be noisy power, though... and that can also make a touchscreen non-responsive.

Good luck, and welcome to the nuthouse!!!

mnem
*Almost alive*

The bomb shelter is repurposed as a basement these days but it still carries the nickname "sheltery" or something like that. It's a relic of finnish building code from the cold war era. But the scope is from a power electronics laboratory and those IGBTs and thyristors can make a nasty boom when things go south 

It's not the mains that's for sure as it does the same thing at work and at my apartment which are in 2 different cities. Or do you mean the power supply?

[mnementh]

*Sigh*

Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. They expect to close over 100 of the remaining 700 stores immediately, and probably will be lucky to survive as a business entity through the holidays. In fact, the upcoming holiday is the only reason creditors allowed the restructuring; so that they could try and make a little more profit for THEM. 

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/10/business/sears-timeline/index.html

I grew up in a Sears "build by numbers" home in Burlington, New Jersey.

mnem
Another casualty of "Trump's America".

[mnementh]

The bomb shelter is repurposed as a basement these days but it still carries the nickname "sheltery" or something like that. It's a relic of finnish building code from the cold war era. But the scope is from a power electronics laboratory and those IGBTs and thyristors can make a nasty boom when things go south 

It's not the mains that's for sure as it does the same thing at work and at my apartment which are in 2 different cities. Or do you mean the power supply?

Yeah, look for ripple on the 5V & 3.3V rails especially; that thing might even have 1.8V. It seems counter-intuitive to not look directly at the specific known culprit first, but really, looking for noisy power rails should always be one of the first steps in your diagnostic checklist.

If you get used to doing it every time, you don't even think about it... and the first time you catch a really noisy rail on an otherwise functioning bit of gear you'll be "Holy shi*!!! How is this thing even working?"

Cheers,

mnem
*tzzzt*

[Cerebus]

Also got some help to organize my rack. Man, these things a way too heavy to work with alone.

Well wadda ya gonna do? Take up media studies? 

(As you're obviously new here - look back about 2-3 pages to get the joke.)

[bd139]

 

Minor fuck up here. Just swatted a mosquito on my T440 and cracked the screen 

[pansku]

Well wadda ya gonna do? Take up media studies? 

(As you're obviously new here - look back about 2-3 pages to get the joke.)

Those scopes sure make these things look featherweight compared to them.

The help was actually mostly because these are so chunky and unbalanced that there is no way I'm going to balance these on one hand while tightening the screws with other. I already had to haul these things five floors up one by one 

[med6753]

Minor fuck up here. Just swatted a mosquito on my T440 and cracked the screen 

D'OH! 

[Specmaster]

Minor fuck up here. Just swatted a mosquito on my T440 and cracked the screen 

Oh No, bloody PF strikes again  .

You reminded me then about the time I was a teenager and had a huge great big queen wasp on the window glass in my bedroom, I picked up a book and thought I'd squash it between the book and the window! Man that thing was fucking tough, I squeezed it  pretty hard but it didn't squash at all so I increased the pressure and it still wouldn't die so I squeezed it harder and the fucking glass broke and fell to the ground and so did the book. Did I kill the wasp I have no idea, couldn't find any sign of it but boy oh boy was I in deep shit. My bedroom was at the side of the house as was our front door and my mum was at the front door talking to our neighbour and the glass and book fell only a couple feet from where they were standing.

[bd139]

Yeah twas a stupid fuck up. Have just levered the spare T440 of my daughter for now and swapped the disks over. This caused bitlocker to lose its shit and like hell I printed out the recovery keys because hardware has changed. Now has a fresh Xubuntu installation on it! Not installing windows tonight. To hell with that. Will order a new screen tomorrow.

LOL at your accident. That is deep shit territory. "it just fell out" is almost the certain answer to that.

Only glass related accident I had was as a kid, the house next door was abandoned. So being the dickhead I am, my good friend Ryan (an Irish kid equally obsessed with explosives which was a bad thing in the 1980s due to the IRA) and myself blew the shit out of the greenhouse with a pipe bomb made out of a sparklet bottle and several air bomb's worth of propellant. Was how shall we say "maximum overkill". Glass was found 200m away and the explosion set off just about every dog in the area. Turned out the poor guy was actually oil rig worker and had been off shore for 9 months . Thought we'd got away with it until he got home and his parents noticed the holes in his anorak from the shrapnel. Beat the answer out of him and phoned my parents. Ssooooooo much trouble.

[Specmaster]

Strewth that was serious shit you did there then, luckily it worked OK but the result could have been so much worse. Did you have to replace the glass in the greenhouse (assuming the frame was still ok)? That what I had to do, at my cost as well and that meant that had to go and buy the glass quickly as I didn't want to sleep with no glass in the window that night and the cost of the glass fucked up my plans to go out on the piss with my mate from work that week as I was an apprentice and was not paid that much back in the day

I learnt my lesson though, never did that again, these days I use one of the those electronic high voltage bats and fry the bastards instead, boy don't they stink when you do that as well, smaller insects like spiders and flies just explode at times , so right up your street then 

[Cerebus]

...
Was how shall we say "maximum overkill". Glass was found 200m away and the explosion...

"MAXIM 37: There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'reload.'"

[bd139]

Yes indeed.

I look back now and I could have lost a hand with that one. Fortunately the greenhouse was going to be removed at some point but not quite as violently as we did it. We had to write a sorry letter, brush up all the glass, grounded, I lost my pocket money for a month, had my fireworks stash confiscated and disposed of. Literally a week later I found a not insignificant tenner in the street so I figured karma didn't apply to me 

That's a bugger. Glass isn't cheap either on proper windows! Lots of pints! 

As an electronics proponent I should have an electric fly swatter but as yet I haven't got one. Aliexpress time!

Edit: I shouldn't complain. Locked in the house it was at this time I built my first working illegal AM transmitter!

[Cubdriver]

*Sigh*

Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. They expect to close over 100 of the remaining 700 stores immediately, and probably will be lucky to survive as a business entity through the holidays. In fact, the upcoming holiday is the only reason creditors allowed the restructuring; so that they could try and make a little more profit for THEM. 

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/10/business/sears-timeline/index.html

I grew up in a Sears "build by numbers" home in Burlington, New Jersey.

mnem
Another casualty of "Trump's America".

 

Oh spare me this ridiculous hyperbole.  Sears has been circling the drain for decades.  They COULD have been what Amazon now is, but lacked the foresight.  Their customer service has been abysmal for years, and they'd been going ever cheaper quality wise on their tools for a long time.  Their power tools were once among the finest; for at least the past ten-fifteen years they've been crap.  (A Craftsman bench grinder my father bought and that is older than I am runs smooth as silk, and you can about shut it off, run upstairs, wash your hands and return before it has completely stopped turning.  A more recent version we had at work sounded like a worn out cement mixer full of empty beer cans, and would about walk the table around the room as it ran.  A cordless drill barely held a charge from the time it was new; I have a 20 year old Makita that still uses one of its original battery packs.)  Their hand tools in recent years were following suit with the 'made in China' rough edges quality slide, and I say this as one who used to almost exclusively buy their hand tools.  Now when I need something, I seek out SK, Wera, Armstrong, Wiha and the like.

And the creditors - would those be the entities that Sears OWES MONEY TO?  Yeah, can't understand why they might want to try and get at least some of it back....   

It's very unfortunate, but based on the decisions made by Sears management, I found myself with fewer and fewer reasons to go there, considering that the main things I purchased from them were tools, and I like to buy GOOD tools.  If you stop selling good tools, then I've no reason to buy tools from you.

Sears is a casualty of their own mismanagement, not "Trump's America", and this bankruptcy has been many years in the making.

-Pat

[bd139]

Agreed on all points. Sears is another victim of retail dying on its arse. Major high street chains here are dropping like flies and deservedly so.

No one wants to go and get shit when shit can come to you, for less money and better quality.

[med6753]

Holy crap bd139! How many "watch lists" are you on?     

Or is this really you they just got the name wrong? 

[bd139]

Damn and I had that hair cut in about 1992 

[med6753]

Damn and I had that hair cut in about 1992 

I knew it! It IS you! 

[med6753]

*Sigh*

Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. They expect to close over 100 of the remaining 700 stores immediately, and probably will be lucky to survive as a business entity through the holidays. In fact, the upcoming holiday is the only reason creditors allowed the restructuring; so that they could try and make a little more profit for THEM. 

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/10/business/sears-timeline/index.html

I grew up in a Sears "build by numbers" home in Burlington, New Jersey.

mnem
Another casualty of "Trump's America".

 

Oh spare me this ridiculous hyperbole.  Sears has been circling the drain for decades.  They COULD have been what Amazon now is, but lacked the foresight.  Their customer service has been abysmal for years, and they'd been going ever cheaper quality wise on their tools for a long time.  Their power tools were once among the finest; for at least the past ten-fifteen years they've been crap.  (A Craftsman bench grinder my father bought and that is older than I am runs smooth as silk, and you can about shut it off, run upstairs, wash your hands and return before it has completely stopped turning.  A more recent version we had at work sounded like a worn out cement mixer full of empty beer cans, and would about walk the table around the room as it ran.  A cordless drill barely held a charge from the time it was new; I have a 20 year old Makita that still uses one of its original battery packs.)  Their hand tools in recent years were following suit with the 'made in China' rough edges quality slide, and I say this as one who used to almost exclusively buy their hand tools.  Now when I need something, I seek out SK, Wera, Armstrong, Wiha and the like.

And the creditors - would those be the entities that Sears OWES MONEY TO?  Yeah, can't understand why they might want to try and get at least some of it back....   

It's very unfortunate, but based on the decisions made by Sears management, I found myself with fewer and fewer reasons to go there, considering that the main things I purchased from them were tools, and I like to buy GOOD tools.  If you stop selling good tools, then I've no reason to buy tools from you.

Sears is a casualty of their own mismanagement, not "Trump's America", and this bankruptcy has been many years in the making.

-Pat

I agree 100% Pat. It has nothing to do with Trump, even though he is an idiot.

[Specmaster]

Damn and I had that hair cut in about 1992 

I knew it! It IS you! 

There's a little doubt about that wrap sheet and wanted poster, there no mention of explosives anywhere 

[bd139]

Check inside the raccoon 

[Specmaster]

Shades of Monty Python