Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

It's worth it for a 8.5 digit one on the condition that (a) it works (b) it comes with a cal cert (c) you can utilise it in some way (d) it stays working for more than the time to recover the cost (e) the courier doesnt fuck it.

Edit: My 475A has just been dispatched. Arriving Monday. Woohoo.  .. no sign of the Fluek dispatch yet 

[tggzzz]

I saw that. I didn’t look at the description.

I tend to offer £20 just to insult the sellers who do that.

As soon as I see who the seller is I ignore it, they always want at least double the normal going rate.

Yebbut...
tmsurplusstore_2
    Offers Accepted: 100.00%
    Total Offers: 5
    Average Reduction  64.58%

in particular
3458A KEYSIGHT. 8½ Digit Multimeter eBay Item Number: 302933590986 £2,800    27/10/2018 05:23:21    £600.00 (offer accepted)

I'm guessing here that you made the offer and won then?

Gawd no! For that price to make sense you would have to have another 3458 which has complementary buggered bits.

I just checked on the sold listings and it doesnt give the price that it was sold for 

Indeed. You can see the sold price on watchcount or goofbid's best offers page.

[bd139]

Good good. I think we worried you had gone insane there.

[tggzzz]

It's worth it for a 8.5 digit one on the condition that (a) it works (b) it comes with a cal cert (c) you can utilise it in some way (d) it stays working for more than the time to recover the cost (e) the courier doesnt fuck it.

A known working 3458 with cal cert is worth several times that selling price, and the asking price wouldn't be wrong.

But what do you mean "...recover the cost"? This is the TEA thread!

[tggzzz]

Good good. I think we worried you had gone insane there.

Oh, my sanity is in doubt: witness my participation in this thread, or you could ask my daughter.

At most you now have an absence of evidence of insanity

[bitseeker]

Since there seems to be a bit of a TEA break, I picked up one of those old HP 431 power meters. Yes, I got it to transplant its feet onto my 6114A.

...

Interestingly, this meter's enclosure panels are a bluish tinted vinyl, not the usual drab olive green.

Yeah, their blue-grey period came before the olive drab.  I'm not certain exactly when the transition came, but would guess early 70s.  IIRC all of my 60s stuff is blue-grey.

...

looks like early 70s - just looked at a pair of 6289A power supplies - both engineering rev 1143, so late 1971 for the design.  The bottom one is s/n 02383 and is blue-grey; the other is s/n 02975 and is olive.

...

the blue-grey one is the one I cleaned up in an earlier thread - it has mid/late 1971 date code parts in it.  Guess I should open the other one...

Thanks for the comparison, Pat. That's yet another benefit of TEA — having specimens to illustrate a point.

I guess I should see when my blue 431 was made.

[Specmaster]

It's worth it for a 8.5 digit one on the condition that (a) it works (b) it comes with a cal cert (c) you can utilise it in some way (d) it stays working for more than the time to recover the cost (e) the courier doesnt fuck it.

A known working 3458 with cal cert is worth several times that selling price, and the asking price wouldn't be wrong.

But what do you mean "...recover the cost"? This is the TEA thread!

True, but for that amount of money you could buy heaps of other TEA items that would be just as much fun trearing down and repairing as required[emoji106]

[mnementh]

In Other News...

My XXXFinity service tech arrived; 2 days after my service went down and the phone bank muppets told me 'We're tracking an outage in your area, should be back up by 9PM'.

"Yeah , we did all the troubleshooting up to the wall with support on the phone; I guess you'll want to start at the demarc, which is right out the back door here."

"Oh course, just let me put these on." *Puts on booties before entering as we've had wet weather the last few days*     *Goes out to demarc*

"Yup, we've got no QAM here, the line is down. What happened, it just suddenly go down?"

"Yeah; was online Wednesday afternoon when it went out, support claimed an outage but that outage evidently remained localized to ME." 

"Odds are, somebody was adding service for another customer, and unhooked you by accident."

"Oh, yay me. The cable goes to that corner of the yard and around the back of that fence, then all the way out to a service agg right on the street, I believe."

"I'll have to go check it there and see what we find then." *Puts toner bug on cable and leaves through side gate*

15 minutes or so later, I hear the gate latch and go outside to see him reconnecting the orange direct-burial cable to my drop.

"Yup, I found your connection in the agg. Just like I thought, someone disconnected you by accident."

We go inside, I login to the router and I can see the channels linking up from the service console... good signal, all the channels I'm paying for.  All of approx 30 minutes.

I tell the service tech thanks, and that he can expect a glowing review when they call me for the followup survey.

Of course, who knows if he was the muppet who disconnected me by accident and cost me 2 days of no service headaches...   


In OTHER, Other News...



While my intardnet was down several items arrived; including these Gold-Plated CNC 4mm bullet and XT-60 connectors.

Funny how some simple things can be so pleasing... much more so, in fact, than the new smartphone that arrived at the same time. 

mnem
*dreading migrating to my new phone*

[Cerebus]

Also Holtek HT75xx clones. Used those in my recent power meter build. Cheaper than AMS1117

The best thing about that series is the 5µA max quiescent current consumption.

[mnementh]

And now for something completely... the same.    [a Tangentially TEA Moment] 



Whilst putting away the aforementioned bullet and XT60 connectors, I came across these, which I KEEP in my RC power connector kit as a REMINDER to BE CAREFUL when plugging in LiPos. That is what 2 4S/4AH flight packs accidentally connected in series will do in less time that you can yelp "OH FUCCCCKKKK!!!"

I was able to unplug them before any lasting damage occurred... and the fairly expensive packs involved were later reterminated and went on to live healthy, productive lives. But there are several dozen permanent pinhole burns in my 80" Piper Pawnee. 

mnem
*ZZAPOWWWW!*  *YELP!!!*

[Cubdriver]

Totally unrelated to TEA, but the place I was taking soaring lessons from in the early 90s used a Pawnee as the glider tug.  Good plane for that - lots of power.  I miss that - need to get back to it at some point & finish and take the check ride...

Edit to add - we use big LiPos occasionally at work - those things scare me - you can't turn them off, and there's a lot of energy packed in that flammable little package!  They definitely call for careful handling, especially when you're first terminating them.

-Pat

[mnementh]

Totally unrelated to TEA, but the place I was taking soaring lessons from in the early 90s used a Pawnee as the glider tug.  Good plane for that - lots of power.  I miss that - need to get back to it at some point & finish and take the check ride...

Edit to add - we use big LiPos occasionally at work - those things scare me - you can't turn them off, and there's a lot of energy packed in that flammable little package!  They definitely call for careful handling, especially when you're first terminating them.

-Pat

My Pawnee was my first gas/electric conversion; a 1250W peak motor swinging a 15" slo-fly electric prop direct-drive. Hence the dual packs with a Y-connector. I later modded the design to eliminate that problem.

Current "State of the Art" in consumer Lixx  power are probably the Tesla packs... those are ~375-400V @ ~160/200/250AH. The Ludicrous P100D exhibition car uses a "pack and a half" design of undisclosed V/A ratings with a 1500A/15KV fuse at the main contactors. 

But those are bundled 18650 cylindrical cells (the new pack for the model 3 is supposed to be 21700 cells), and tends to be a lot more abuse-tolerant and exponentially less likely to conflagrate.

I know there are some scary-huge Lixx arrays used in solar now... but those are usually huge jerry-can looking prismatic cells which are designed for relatively low charge/discharge rates and longer life.

That said... a modern 10AH LiPo pack used in larger AP rigs can discharge at ~500A for almost 30 seconds; 200A for a couple minutes. That's enough juice to weld a 6" piece of channel.

mnem
*juicy*

[bitseeker]

Gliders:

Flying one is on my bucket list. I've only done it in a sim. Catching thermals for real must be a hoot.

Cable internet:

Yep, I had my service disconnected once when my neighbor ordered his. Had to wait all weekend to get it resolved because repair crews don't work on Saturday or Sunday. Fail!

DSL before that was worse, though. When they increased the speed of my service, it got really flaky. I told them multiple times that the S/N was too low and the problem was on their end since I already compared connection quality stats using the modem in the house and at the MPOE. They rolled a truck out three times trying different things before reaching the same conclusion.

First world problems...

[tggzzz]

Totally unrelated to TEA, but the place I was taking soaring lessons from in the early 90s used a Pawnee as the glider tug.  Good plane for that - lots of power.  I miss that - need to get back to it at some point & finish and take the check ride...

Winch launches are much cheaper and much more fun. Stationary to 50kt in 5s, then climb at 40degrees (feet higher than your head!), and after 45s you are at 2000ft.

You occasionally hear people screaming on the way up. Last time I heard that, she came down with the usual slightly inane grin - and went straight back up

[Cubdriver]

Gliders:

Flying one is on my bucket list. I've only done it in a sim. Catching thermals for real must be a hoot.

It is.  Very relaxing as opposed to a single engine light plane - nothing but soft wind noise and the occasional creak from the airframe, vs the constant roar of the engine & prop, which get old after a while even WITH a headset to dull the drone.  It's also funny to realize that the main instrument you're using to fly is a tuft of yarn taped to the canopy in front of you.  (The yaw string, used to maintain coordinated flight for those who don't know.  It serves the same purpose as the ball in a turn and slip indicator or a turn coordinator, but is right in your line of sight and responds instantly). You use a LOT of rudder input in a sailplane - the ailerons have a really long arm to generate adverse yaw as you turn.

The bitch of thermals is that there always seemed to be a nice one right where you turned final and were committed to land.   

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

Totally unrelated to TEA, but the place I was taking soaring lessons from in the early 90s used a Pawnee as the glider tug.  Good plane for that - lots of power.  I miss that - need to get back to it at some point & finish and take the check ride...

Winch launches are much cheaper and much more fun. Stationary to 50kt in 5s, then climb at 40degrees (feet higher than your head!), and after 45s you are at 2000ft.

You occasionally hear people screaming on the way up. Last time I heard that, she came down with the usual slightly inane grin - and went straight back up

Never had the opportunity to try a winch launch - aero tow is the norm here in the states.  I can well imagine it must be a LOT less $$ than a tug.  And likely a lot more exciting in the event of a rope break, too! 

Maybe some day...

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

And now back to TEA time.  I opened the olive colored HP supply, and the date codes I see make it appear to be late 1973 production - I'm seeing codes of 7326, 7330 and 7335 on caps and semis.







FWIW.

-Pat

[bd139]

I love those power supplies. The last series of supplies that you could beat an elephant to death with and they'll still work.

[tggzzz]

Totally unrelated to TEA, but the place I was taking soaring lessons from in the early 90s used a Pawnee as the glider tug.  Good plane for that - lots of power.  I miss that - need to get back to it at some point & finish and take the check ride...

Winch launches are much cheaper and much more fun. Stationary to 50kt in 5s, then climb at 40degrees (feet higher than your head!), and after 45s you are at 2000ft.

You occasionally hear people screaming on the way up. Last time I heard that, she came down with the usual slightly inane grin - and went straight back up

Never had the opportunity to try a winch launch - aero tow is the norm here in the states.  I can well imagine it must be a LOT less $$ than a tug.  And likely a lot more exciting in the event of a rope break, too! 

Maybe some day...

Just do it

Cable breaks occur regularly. Nose down, regain landing speed, land ahead if low, or if high do an abbreviated circuit.

Objective is to go over the top at 0G, since then it is impossible to stall. Hence if the mud floats in front of your face, you've got it right, but if it plasters itself on the canopy you've been too enthusiastic.

[mnementh]

I love those power supplies. The last series of supplies that you could beat an elephant to death with and they'll still work.

That explains the elephant in the room. 

mnem
Hey... makes a damn fine footstool for a dwagon. 

[bitseeker]

Gliders: Flying one is on my bucket list. I've only done it in a sim. Catching thermals for real must be a hoot.

It is.  Very relaxing as opposed to a single engine light plane - nothing but soft wind noise and the occasional creak from the airframe, vs the constant roar of the engine & prop, which get old after a while even WITH a headset to dull the drone.

Yeah, I've flown a couple of simple aircraft (C172, Cherokee) and a twin turbo prop — all noisy and wearing the large headsets can get tiring, but flying is always a treat.

It's also funny to realize that the main instrument you're using to fly is a tuft of yarn taped to the canopy in front of you. 

That and the variometer tone. It's cool to be able to hear when you catch a thermal (or lose it).

The bitch of thermals is that there always seemed to be a nice one right where you turned final and were committed to land.   

Murphy's everywhere, even on landing.

[tautech]

Gliders: Flying one is on my bucket list. I've only done it in a sim. Catching thermals for real must be a hoot.

It is.  Very relaxing as opposed to a single engine light plane - nothing but soft wind noise and the occasional creak from the airframe, vs the constant roar of the engine & prop, which get old after a while even WITH a headset to dull the drone.

Yeah, I've flown a couple of simple aircraft (C172, Cherokee) and a twin turbo prop — all noisy and wearing the large headsets can get tiring, but flying is always a treat.

Except if you have a pair of those fancy Bose noise cancelling headsets, the daughter always scabbed extra set from her buddies when she was taking us up for a spin in a Cessna. The wife got to go up lots with her and would whip up to my uncles 4 hrs drive north in a bit over an hour in the Cessna, just for lunch ! 

Murphy's everywhere, even on landingespecially on landing.

Fixed that for ya. 

[bitseeker]

     

[mnementh]

[Random Mode]

Note the following positions have null balls: C5, C8, C12, C15, C19, E3, E17, G5, G7, G10, G13, H3, H17, J12, K8, M3, M7, M10, M13, M17, P5, R3, R17, U6, U11, U13, W9.

[/Random Mode]

mnem
THAT is a lot of superpositioned balls.

[tggzzz]

Gliders: Flying one is on my bucket list. I've only done it in a sim. Catching thermals for real must be a hoot.

It is.  Very relaxing as opposed to a single engine light plane - nothing but soft wind noise and the occasional creak from the airframe, vs the constant roar of the engine & prop, which get old after a while even WITH a headset to dull the drone.

Yeah, I've flown a couple of simple aircraft (C172, Cherokee) and a twin turbo prop — all noisy and wearing the large headsets can get tiring, but flying is always a treat.

It's also funny to realize that the main instrument you're using to fly is a tuft of yarn taped to the canopy in front of you. 

That and the variometer tone. It's cool to be able to hear when you catch a thermal (or lose it).

Don't forget that other instrument, which is literally true in gliders: the seat of your pants. The phrase "flying by the seat of your pants" isn't merely a metaphor.