Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cubdriver]

this is not my proudest moment.  if fact.....if this story were for anyone but bitseeker i would lie and say this was someone else's ham fisted mess.

could not find upside down nixies for love or money.   at first it looked like the tubes were soldered in.....but low and behold they are in individual pin recepticles.   BUT the down side is that because of either corrosion or dried out conductive lube they are very very very difficult to remove.  even managed to break the envelope on one (no big deal since it was dead already).  had some spare smallish nixies from some long dead device......so it was flying wire time.   24 awg tinned solid wire is a snug fit in those little recepticles.  oh by the way, the msd and lsd are the easiest positions to stuff all the wires back behind the display.


ok, the digits are a little off.   BUT in my defense.......if a miracle occurs and stock of upside down nixies appears on the bay it will be a trivial matter to pull out my cluster f&%k and restore the little bastard to original.

if you want a couple of those 5750s let me know and i'll stuff 'em in an envelope.

ps  please warn cubdriver not to look at this post.  at the start i really thought it would turn out better than this.........the horror.....the horror.

Ummm, freqq...  If you want a warning like that to be effective, it'd be better to put it at the beginning of the post rather than the end.  Just sayin'...   

That being said, truth be told I think it's a well done and very clever hack, even more so because you made no permanent changes to the instrument and instead managed to make it totally reversible.  And in the meantime, other than being slightly misaligned, the digits look to be very close size-wise.  Nicely done.

 

-Pat

[mnementh]

    this is not my proudest moment.  if fact.....if this story were for anyone but bitseeker i would lie and say this was someone else's ham fisted mess.
(SNIP)
ps  please warn cubdriver not to look at this post.  at the start i really thought it would turn out better than this.........the horror.....the horror.

This REALLY is not that bad a job of MacGyver-fyin'.  "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

If you were to use Kynar wire instead and nip the pins on the sockets close after soldering, I'm about 90% positive you could get those almost perfectly in line, and the profile of the neon elements seems a really good match to the originals. 

I think this is a GREAT "Rev 0.1" of this mod. Well done!

mnem
"It been Mac-gyver-fied!"

[mnementh]

Scope screensaver (bouncy ball thing) issue 1 schematic attached if anyone wants to have a go.

Requirements, easily fulfilled by TEA members:

1. Scope, preferably analogue.
2. More than one power supply that will kick out ~15V.

Instructions:

1. Locate parts
2. Build it
3. Connect to scope and power supply.
4. Twizzle RV1 until something interesting happens.
5. When nothing interesting happens, debug it.
6. Come back here and blame me for a schematic error 
(SNIP)

Snurched in its entirety for my "Random TEA" folder... and for posterity. You will NEVER be able to un-post it now. 

mnem
"Are you feeling the love NOW?"

[Cerebus]

How come you guys don't like Yankee dollars when everyone else loves them? Is it revenge for booting your arse out in 1789? 

We don't like them for the same reason that any country with a traditionally hard currency wouldn't. Would you expect a 'merkin store to take £, € or CHF? USD is usually only an acceptable currency in places where the local currency is anywhere between soft and evanescent. You'd have a hard time spending USD anywhere in Euro denominated European countries except possibly in tourist traps, where they will cheerfully hose you on the exchange rate.

[mnementh]

How come you guys don't like Yankee dollars when everyone else loves them? Is it revenge for booting your arse out in 1789? 

We don't like them for the same reason that any country with a traditionally hard currency wouldn't. Would you expect a 'merkin store to take £, € or CHF? USD is usually only an acceptable currency in places where the local currency is anywhere between soft and evanescent. You'd have a hard time spending USD anywhere in Euro denominated European countries except possibly in tourist traps, where they will cheerfully  ( all the way to a bank that is actually solvent) hose you on the exchange rate.

Sorry C... that hosing you depicted simply was NOT cheerful enough to reflect their general glee at the prospect of "exchanging" 'merkin dollars for local trinketry. 

mnem
"We're gonna need at least a three-inch line for that hosing." ~ Firehose-volleyball tournament, circa 1998

[bitseeker]

Just remember when you have too many, another one doesn’t make the problem any worse.

Confusious SAYS "Just remember when you have too many, another one doesn't make the problem any worse"

I can just imagine that being one of his sayings [emoji23]

Confucius may not have said it, but it seems appropriate to be a TEA saying. I shall add it to the OP.

[xrunner]

Confucius may not have said it, but it seems appropriate to be a TEA saying. I shall add it to the OP.

Confucius say: Man who have too many oscilloscopes, need to stop counting.

 

[bitseeker]

could not find upside down nixies for love or money.   at first it looked like the tubes were soldered in.....but low and behold they are in individual pin recepticles.   BUT the down side is that because of either corrosion or dried out conductive lube they are very very very difficult to remove.  even managed to break the envelope on one (no big deal since it was dead already).  had some spare smallish nixies from some long dead device......so it was flying wire time.   24 awg tinned solid wire is a snug fit in those little recepticles.  oh by the way, the msd and lsd are the easiest positions to stuff all the wires back behind the display.

...

ps  please warn cubdriver not to look at this post.  at the start i really thought it would turn out better than this.........the horror.....the horror.

Ummm, freqq...  If you want a warning like that to be effective, it'd be better to put it at the beginning of the post rather than the end.  Just sayin'...   

That being said, truth be told I think it's a well done and very clever hack, even more so because you made no permanent changes to the instrument and instead managed to make it totally reversible.  And in the meantime, other than being slightly misaligned, the digits look to be very close size-wise.  Nicely done.

Not only that, the substitution is symmetrical (rather than both high digits together on just one side or the other). All things considered, it's a good way to go. Probably the only way to get closer to original with alignment would be to try the view-from-top Nixies (assuming there's enough space behind them). Could be interesting.

if you want a couple of those 5750s let me know and i'll stuff 'em in an envelope.

I should be getting the 5321A tomorrow. Stay tuned and we'll see if the drivers are the deal or not.

[Specmaster]

Confucius may not have said it, but it seems appropriate to be a TEA saying. I shall add it to the OP.

Confucius say: Man who have too many oscilloscopes, need to stop counting.

 

Define "too many" 

[bitseeker]

Confucius may not have said it, but it seems appropriate to be a TEA saying. I shall add it to the OP.

Confucius say: Man who have too many oscilloscopes, need to stop counting.

 

I like it!

[Cubdriver]

Confucius may not have said it, but it seems appropriate to be a TEA saying. I shall add it to the OP.

Confucius say: Man who have too many oscilloscopes, need to stop counting.

 

I like it!

That advice works for me.  At this point, I'm afraid to count oscilloscopes.  I'm afraid to count counters, too.   

-Pat

[bitseeker]

Man with too many counters...too many counters...counters...counters... *smoke*

[mnementh]

Confucius may not have said it, but it seems appropriate to be a TEA saying. I shall add it to the OP.

Confucius say: Man who have too many oscilloscopes, need to stop counting.

 

I like it!

That advice works for me.  At this point, I'm afraid to count oscilloscopes.  I'm afraid to count counters, too.   

-Pat

You need to get a counter with a counter counting option and set it up on your counter, counting counters.   

mnem
And your scopes.

[Berni]

Oh for oscilloscopes im pretty fine. I only have 3 of those. That's not a lot right?

This thread has shown me that you don't have to worry about it at least until the count goes double digits.

[Cubdriver]

Confucius may not have said it, but it seems appropriate to be a TEA saying. I shall add it to the OP.

Confucius say: Man who have too many oscilloscopes, need to stop counting.

 

I like it!

That advice works for me.  At this point, I'm afraid to count oscilloscopes.  I'm afraid to count counters, too.   

-Pat

You need to get a counter with a counter counting option and set it up on your counter, counting counters.   

mnem
And your scopes.

Well, just in the upstairs hall there are four counters, two voltage standards, a digital voltmeter, four power supplies, a noise generator, two amplifier/null detectors and a synthesized signal generator.   

<stands>  Hi, I'm Pat and I have a severe addiction to old HP, Fluke, Tektronix and GenRad equipment.  <sits down again, eye twitching slightly from evilBay withdrawal>

[Mr. Scram]

The trick is to have more than you can count, because that way you can never know you have too many.

[W8LV]

Does TEA have Twelve Steps?
I am powerless over spec sheets for low end oscilloscopes of today, as they have capabilities that were simply UNOBTANIUM when I was a kid and Tectronix was King.

My Sad Story is here:

My Oscilloscope Affair: A Love Story

I once had an affair with an Eico and an Identical TWIN PAIR of Tektronix scopes at the same time. I was in my early twenties, but even then, it was hard keeping up, even at my young age. And you know? It just got to be too much for me to handle... I couldn't keep one set of leads from getting confused in the middle of a lab "session" with which scope I was courting at the time.

I know it's disgusting now looking back at it all since I also had a Girlfriend, but my hands were ALL OVER these Scopes... Playing as I was with High Voltage Fire, I didn't even observe the "keep one hand in your pocket rule." God, I guess we were ALL a bit reckless back then, before we had to worry about CMOS Static and Viruses (!) We didn't worry that just ONE touch could ruin everything...I was one of those guys in my Wasted Youth... Long Hair, Polyester Pants static generating be damned, and All Caution to the wind, though I DID least have a Pen Pocket Protector. Here I was even putting my Girlfriend at risk, of losing her Boyfriend anyway, but I'm sure in hindsight, that even SHE would get over the shock. -- By the next weekend. Boyfriends like me were a dime a dozen. Especially the non-athletic types like me who spent sunny days in a dingy apartment electronics lab.

After all, in those Heady GTO Days, I was driving an Oldsmobile Cutlass! Not an Oldsmobile Cutlass Deluxe. JUST an Oldsmobile Cutlass. With Massey Ferguson Tractor Red Paint over the Rusted and smashed back left quarter panel from where I had wrecked it on a Road Trip to pick up...YES! MORE Electronics Junque from Fair Radio Sales in Lima, Ohio! You get the picture.

You know, the Tektronix "twins" were very Up Town and Sophisticated. But the Eico had such an alluring Vacuum tube Smell, even though she WAS a bit more of a Waterfront kind of painted "Lady", with a thicker green phosphor line and all. Sure She lacked the Badge and the Window Dressing Makeup, and her prodigy was certainly no more than kit built and bodge job modified, and creaky slow. But she knew what to do, even if she wasn't Fast and Wide... And you always knew where you stood with her, and somehow even her distorted Sine Waves were Cute as a Button.

And then, it happened.

My Eico was left with one of her previous "suitors" with a replacement non-polarized plug. Some guys are like that: They just USE a scope and then take the Cheap and Undignified way out: And there she sits at the Garage Sale...until finally she is reduced to the Landfill Status Discard…But a few LUCKY ONES are Rescued.

I had just switched apartments, trying to keep a low profile in my Obsessional Shame. Just after signing The Lease with The Landlord who bought my "cover story" of being a mere College Student who wouldn't convert the back open second story patio into an Antenna Farm resembling the roof of an Embassy and a SAM Site, I nonchalantly plugged her in at the new domicile, without checking which way the polarity was... I gently turned up her gain. The smell of vacuum tubes, capacitor wax, and dust was overpowering. I gently touched her with the back of my hand, and the sensation of warmth was indescribable! I hadn't plugged in the Tektronix Twins yet…they didn't need to know about THIS little Test Bench Romp! Yet their empty cold CRT's stared on in blank disgust at what was about to happen.

I was simultaneously annoyed with ANOTHER smell, namely the crappy "Cost Cutter" Generic Brand pizza in the Gas oven that was way past the 45 minute wind up timer bell ding that I had set to remind me that it was ready and I always forgot about in the middle of my experiments anyway. I couldn't afford a microwave back then. Few could. But then again, that wasn't the kind of microwaves I was interested in back in the day. So I ate lot of Burned Costcutter Pizza. There's nothing worse than Burned Costcutter Generic Pizza. Other than not eating at all. Other than drinking Costcutter Generic Beer. Which is actually not better than not drinking at all. But not by much.

My Forgettable but it seemed like a Good Idea at the time Breadboard Experiment "Device Under Test" was all ready to go. This was hand carried from the "Old" apartment, not disassembled and put back together at the new place...that would have been the LOGICAL way to move it: Instead, IT had made a separate and distinct trip in the Cutlass. And all the way up the steps. It was "ready", I told my Girlfriend. And would only take me a few minutes to complete. Of Course, that ACTUALLY meant three hours and forty five minutes of futzing around with four dozen Alligator Clips, and one Frozen Pizza as I recall and reckon.

But it was ready.

You Christen a ship with a bottle of Champagne. Times being what they were, I popped the lid on a Generic can of warm beer. It was a white can, and it had a black label, that said "Beer". But it sure didn't taste like a Carling Black Label, no matter how good the price was. Somehow, it matched the Eico for the Moment of Truth.

So I plugged in my unprotected Male Banana Plug into the Eico's Female Jack, as I had so many times before. Just as my Girlfriend entered the room as she was saying: "What are you doing in there?" from behind the closed but unlocked door. Since it didn't have a lock on it.

And all Hell Broke loose in a flash and lightning ball that only Thor could deliver. -- Or, in this case? Abraham Lincoln. Yep, that's right! -- Old Honest Abe Himself. (Thor WOULD come to visit me a number of years later, and luckily I lived.)

Between the pizza and the electronics, the smoke was Tremendous. -- White and Black and thin and thick, all at the same time. The cooking sounds stopped first with the pizza, but the electronics were still sizzling. It's a bad sound, and it doesn't give the satisfaction of a sizzling steak on the grill. -- Not nearly. And you can't really stop the smell, but at least you can put out the fire with two boxes of Cost Cutter Generic Baking Soda.

After I got a hold of a flashlight, and turned the pizza off, since the Gas oven wasn't even mildly concerned that the electrons no longer want through our tungsten filaments or anything else for that matter, I located the breaker box. Which wasn't a breaker box.

It was a fuse box. There wasn't even a box of spare fuses left by the previous occupant. Everybody always at least kept a couple of spares taped to the cover if not an entire box minus one replacement...after all, there was no twenty-four hour Wally Worlds back then. -- So if you had a Sump Pump and it was Sunday, and you didn't have a spare fuse? Guess What? That meant that you were going Swimming, that's what!

So now I figure well I have to unscrew the Old Fuse anyway, and try to come up with a replacement of the same size. -- From somewhere. It was Sunday.

And then I figured it out: The previous Occupant had placed a penny in the fuse box in place of a fuse. -- Probably on a Sunday. And Poor Abe had given all that he could!

I'm Certain, that all the Power plants in North America placed their Entire Electrical Output through that ONE single phase 15 Amp A.C. Circuit.

My shock was Tremendous. My Tektronix Twins Stared on in Blank Disbelief. My Girlfriend ran down the steps. I was fairly certain that she wasn't going to be back with a fuse. -- Or ever. When she did came back, I was trying to put the smoke back into the Eico, but the Rescue Mission quickly became a Recovery Operation, and then an Autopsy. And my Girlfriend didn't come back with a fuse, but she DID blow a fuse when I asked her if she had one. We got married.

73 and All the Best!

DE W8LV Bill

Best Regards from Amateur
Radio Station W8LV
Station Info:
www.hamqth.com/W8LV



73 and All the Best!
DE W8LV Bill

[URI]

Does TEA have Twelve Steps?
I am powerless over spec sheets for low end oscilloscopes of today, as they have capabilities that were simply UNOBTANIUM when I was a kid and Tectronix was King.

My Sad Story is here:

My Oscilloscope Affair: A Love Story

Hi Bill -here where you get help coming around having to count your addictive pieces of test gear/oscilloscopes.   
I enjoyed your tale.
Welcome to this thread of madnesslovers of test gear! 

[Cubdriver]

Does TEA have Twelve Steps?

73 and All the Best!
DE W8LV Bill

We have something like that.  See them in the first reply to this thread on page one.   

Oh, and I was mistaken in my earlier post - there are FIVE counters in the upstairs hall - I missed a little Fluke in unknown condition that followed me home from one of the museum swap meets a few months ago...

-Pat

[Mr. Scram]

We have something like that.  See them in the first reply to this thread on page one.   

Oh, and I was mistaken in my earlier post - there are FIVE counters in the upstairs hall - I missed a little Fluke in unknown condition that followed me home from one of the museum swap meets a few months ago...

-Pat

Does a counter count when it doesn't count?

[Cubdriver]

We have something like that.  See them in the first reply to this thread on page one.   

Oh, and I was mistaken in my earlier post - there are FIVE counters in the upstairs hall - I missed a little Fluke in unknown condition that followed me home from one of the museum swap meets a few months ago...

-Pat

Does a counter count when it doesn't count?

I think so.  It certainly counts as part of my repair queue...

-Pat

[bd139]

I have three counters but they’re all only frequency counters. Last night I needed a totalising counter.

Now this is a bugger. There’s a couple of untested 5316Bs floating around which is on the mark but the sellers want 175 and 200 GBP respectively which is quite frankly insane even if they had OCXO options. Grr.

Of course this then leads to the question of not knowing the time if you have lots or counters. And this leads to GPSDO and distribution amp. And the rabbit hole gets deeper.

[W8LV]

As long as ONE of those counters you have has a GPS Reference, you can sleep at night.

And if you built a Cesium Clock as a Comparator Reference for the GPS, you can sleep even BETTER at night.

But I'd Heed the Inverse Square Law and not sleep too close to the clock... ;-)

73 DE W8LV Bill


73 and All the Best!
DE W8LV Bill

[bd139]

Haha I just edited my comment literally after posting to cover that ironically 

[Specmaster]

Haha I just edited my comment literally after posting to cover that ironically 

Isn't a totalising counter called a calculator, albeit in your case with a dead keyboard? [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]