Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[beanflying]

Apart from the farce that is our federation of states we have had nearly every formally State or Federal government owned corporation or entity sold off.

Telstra (formally sole national goverment Telco that made a PROFIT each year) currently part of the issue with our National pathetic (Liberal Government) Broadband scheme. The sold it off entirely a fair number of years ago in a cash grab to see the copper network degrade in the interests of profit to then have to buy some of it back and patch it up to make the 'new' system work. There was so many issues with the sale and how it was done volumes would be needed as to why.

Commonwealth Bank of 'Australia' The sale of this Bank has cost the Taxpayers Billions in ongoing profits. Sale price circa $8 billion total against last years profit of $9.93 Billion 

Qantas (formally profit making National Airline) probably a good one to get out of as profits really suck and the capital need is massive.

SEC (Our States Electricity Company) Was bloated to hell with employees but still a profit making entity. Power Bills have soared and infrastructure spending is virtually NIL as the system is gouged for $$. What was needed at the time was a long term fix and strategy for the company.

State Rail services (used to make a minor loss each year before being broken up and parts sold off) infrastructure is barely propped up rolling stock in country areas is ancient services are late and or cancelled to have Trains replaced by Bus.....  The only real infrastructure investment still comes from the State Government who no longer runs the daily system https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/news-and-events/news/public-transport-investments-in-2016-17-victorian-state-budget/ Nett loss.

State based regional Water Boards (amalgamated and any cash reserves held siphoned into Government coffers a long time ago) Where I grew up the local water board had actual millions set aside (30+ years ago) for future needs on a long term plan now that area suffers from restrictions on a regular basis as usage has increased.

Australia Post - still in government hands so far but only just. The Right Ideologues want it gone.

Plenty more but overall it gets a FAIL

Essential and Strategic Services well run in Government Hands make sense in particular when run for the community and not the shareholder benefit.

Time for another Coffee.......

[Specmaster]

@bean, couldn't agree more with you, we have the same stories over here with trains and buses and each of sections of the train network blame each other for the poor service etc. Water is now in the hands of foreign owners, as are gas and electric and there are even plans around to privatise the NHS. Parts of it are already in the private sector, such as ambulance services, care in the community is now run by loads of private companies. Local authorities have off loaded their housing stock to housing associations and their Direct Labour Organisations (DLO) who carried out all repairs to housing, public buildings, road networks etc have long since been under private control and hence the poor state of our roads with massive potholes everywhere.

Public buildings such as hospitals, schools etc are no longer owned by the people but private companies and new infrastructure, including some roads is built under Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and then leased back to the authorities for 25 years.

Just how anyone can believe that this makes financial sense when these private companies are making massive profits to pay shareholders, that money comes from the local authorities who in turn get it from the general public at large and so we are actually paying far more than would if these were done in house. 

Even key safety services such as Air Traffic Control is also now in the hands of private operators as are large parts of the support services to the military, where will it end and sense takes over?

I'm off to bed before I really get going on the inequalities of the various demographics and the gulf is just growing wider all the time.

[bitseeker]

Hi my name is Beanflying and it has been exactly 6 months today since I purchased any test equipment 

Mmmm www.ebay.com www.ebay.com.au www.ebay.de www.ebay.co.uk .......... 

Welcome back, bean! Sounds like you're long overdue for some "therapy."

[beanflying]

Maybe therapy is really due. Current outstanding orders on Evilbay of any sort - ZERO for the first time in years 

The only other things I am waiting on is a few spares for stock from Creality for my 3d printer collection and a set of feeler and pitch gauges on Aliexpress.

[mnementh]

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B077DKT757

I picked up a set of dragon claws because they were half-price on Amazon's Cyber Mum-day sale.  I was feeling entirely too domesticated after buying waterproof sheets for my daughter's new bed, which I just finished building... 

mnem
Retail Therapy. Still cheaper than the real thing. 

[0culus]

Does anyone know where one might obtain HP seven segment displays for the older voltmeters? Turns out the character on my 3455A that handles the most significant digit is dead, and I hadn't noticed it simply because I hadn't needed to measure anything above 10V. The part number according to the service manual is 1990-0540.

Figure this will make an even better excuse to open the front panel and fix the sticky keys! 

[beanflying]

HP rolled their own LED displays in the early days and changed part numbers OFTEN with no cross references in a lot of cases

evilbay or there is 1 or 2 expensive US based sites that may have one available. I went round in circles looking for looking for one for a 5381a frequency counter. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hp-5381a-frequency-meter/msg1377018/#msg1377018

Happy hunting

[tautech]

Does anyone know where one might obtain HP seven segment displays for the older voltmeters? Turns out the character on my 3455A that handles the most significant digit is dead, and I hadn't noticed it simply because I hadn't needed to measure anything above 10V. The part number according to the service manual is 1990-0540.

Figure this will make an even better excuse to open the front panel and fix the sticky keys! 

http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/hp-parts/hpparts5.html
13 in stock @ $8 ea

[Cerebus]

I don't know about that. Everything they have privatised here works better than it did in public hands and is actually accountable to someone.

Royal Mail was dire before. I mean really dire. It's less dire now. It's still not good though.

I beg to differ. Pre-privatisation the first household delivery at least turned up in the morning, now half of them are in the afternoon. Pre-pre-privatisation the first delivery turned up for breakfast time and there was actually a second household delivery. And the privatisation of public transport has been an on-going disaster for 30 years or more.

[bd139]

I still get two sets of deliveries daily. First around 10am to deliver letters (which is better than the pre-9 stuff that used to turn up for commercial purposes as there was no one in) and then a second van drop off for large items and signed for stuff around 1pm. Historically speaking the problems with Royal Mail were “out of SLA” deliveries, rampant theft, letter dumping and misdelivery. First class used to take 1-14 days. Now 1-2 always as specified.

Main issue I get now is “ramming” which is “this shit is going through the letterbox if I have to use my foot to get it in”

Public transport is mostly good. I spent a lot of my life on British Rail and London Busses. It’s so much better now it’s unbelievable that we have come as far as we have. The only thing that is suffering is transport out in the sticks and that’s because it isn’t financially viable and probably never was (Dr Beeching comes to mind if you want to go far back enough). On the last point, we realised this wasn’t going to work in the 1950s onwards and looked at centralising populations in new towns. Unfortunately that was a cock up due to other reasons and led to things like Stevenage and Harlow.

[capt bullshot]

Some quick porn seeing as this thread appears to be a bit slow (for once!). Tektronix 7B53A plugin. I feel slightly sad stealing bits out of this but it will bring a 465 back to life. I'll keep it around and if I get my hands on another 7k then I'll have parts handy.

I'd never rip such a plug-in apart to fix a lousy 465. Once you have these Tek 7 mainframes, you don't want the portables anymore ...

[bd139]

I think the 7B53A is inferior to the 465’s timebase if I’m honest. If it was a faster 500Mhz mainframe and suitable timebase things would be different. Also to note when I checked the power rails on this plugin initially they were short (hello tants!). Also 7B53’s are common as muck. I’ve seen loads of them in the last year. I don’t have a problem stripping things for parts at all. As there is no supply of most of the parts then by nature our old Tek scopes are in the palliative care part of the lifecycle so you have to take them from somewhere to get the best outcome.

What would be a shame is to take that IC out, sling the rest of the plugin and not use the rest of the parts which is what some vendors do. They strip valuable parts out. A second hand 2n3904 has no value to them but I can use it

[Terry01]

I still get two sets of deliveries daily. First around 10am to deliver letters (which is better than the pre-9 stuff that used to turn up for commercial purposes as there was no one in) and then a second van drop off for large items and signed for stuff around 1pm. Historically speaking the problems with Royal Mail were “out of SLA” deliveries, rampant theft, letter dumping and misdelivery. First class used to take 1-14 days. Now 1-2 always as specified.

Main issue I get now is “ramming” which is “this shit is going through the letterbox if I have to use my foot to get it in”

Public transport is mostly good. I spent a lot of my life on British Rail and London Busses. It’s so much better now it’s unbelievable that we have come as far as we have. The only thing that is suffering is transport out in the sticks and that’s because it isn’t financially viable and probably never was (Dr Beeching comes to mind if you want to go far back enough). On the last point, we realised this wasn’t going to work in the 1950s onwards and looked at centralising populations in new towns. Unfortunately that was a cock up due to other reasons and led to things like Stevenage and Harlow.

Agree with most of that apart from the "ramming" as my brother in law works at the local postie depot so my posties are sound because of that. I get mail in the morning and bigger stuff later in the day also. Sometimes I even get a phone call to make sure i'm in or when is best to drop parcels in.
The other couriers can be a different story though but "mostly" are ok.
I grew up in the sticks and now live in Edinburgh so know about the travel situation and agree 100% with what you say. The difference between Edinburgh public transport and where I grew up is literally like night and day. Take the buses for instance. the normal service where I grew up is 1 per hour at normal times and in Edinburgh even on a Sunday it is every 15 mins!

[bd139]

Yeah my postie is just a dick. He's new though so I'm going to give it a couple of weeks before I complain

Yeah same. I lived out in the sticks near Stansted airport for a bit. Busses were hourly if they even turned up. Was easier to ride 4 miles into Bishop's Stortford and get on a train there to go anywhere you wanted.

Comparison, my nearest bus stop (2 min walk away) live departures in both directions. THIS is public transport:

[beanflying]

You guys are spoiled for public transport. In this neck of the woods there is 3 train services a day each way starting 20km away and to get a bus from here only meets two of them. There is talk of another service but with our recent state election just been won by a huge margin by the other side to our local Dairy Farming Dill my hopes are not high.

More important our nearest sketchy Electronics retailer is 3 hours away or 4 hours for a decent one. Mail order is king here but I miss 'real' local shops run by people with knowledge and passion (she sold 5 or 6 years ago the new owner screwed it in 3)

[Specmaster]

I still get two sets of deliveries daily. First around 10am to deliver letters (which is better than the pre-9 stuff that used to turn up for commercial purposes as there was no one in) and then a second van drop off for large items and signed for stuff around 1pm. Historically speaking the problems with Royal Mail were “out of SLA” deliveries, rampant theft, letter dumping and misdelivery. First class used to take 1-14 days. Now 1-2 always as specified.

Main issue I get now is “ramming” which is “this shit is going through the letterbox if I have to use my foot to get it in”

Public transport is mostly good. I spent a lot of my life on British Rail and London Busses. It’s so much better now it’s unbelievable that we have come as far as we have. The only thing that is suffering is transport out in the sticks and that’s because it isn’t financially viable and probably never was (Dr Beeching comes to mind if you want to go far back enough). On the last point, we realised this wasn’t going to work in the 1950s onwards and looked at centralising populations in new towns. Unfortunately that was a cock up due to other reasons and led to things like Stevenage and Harlow.

Well I'm with Cerebus on this Royal mail has gone down hill rapidly since privatisation and public transport likewise. I used to work in public transport and back in the day it was nothing to see on my local town route 3 double deckers, 1 service bus and 2 relief buses on a service which was a 10 minute service normally. Where I lived, I was served by route 44A, and 44B (10 minute intervals on both routes) and a 41 route (15 minute) and there was still plenty of cars on the roads as well. Of course this was when it was a nationalised industry and fares were attractive enough to entice people out of their cars onto buses. Since they were privatised, they have declined to the point where now the services are 15 minutes and 30 minutes and are single deckers and a relief, well their not heard of anymore.

It is actually cheaper to drive into town then bus it, and this even more of an incentive if your a family doing that trip, you save loads and have the convenience of going when you like, door to door almost. Is it far better to have a bus carrying 40 people @ £1 a head then the same bus with only 4 or 5 on board @£5 a head? Given that most cars tend to be during the working day, single occupancy, each bus has the potential to take 40 cars off the road with the reduced wear and tear on the roads, reduced pollution and reduced traffic congestion and the buses would make more money as result.

[capt bullshot]

Yes, the 7B53 is quite common and nothing too fancy.
But I like the 7603 (which I consider the starters drug of these mainframes) way more than the 468 that's sitting somewhere in my shelves. Afair, the 468 is just the 465 with that digital storage added, so from my experience, the 465 timebase is slightly different (can display more traces) from the 7B53, but does the same in gross overview.

[bd139]

You guys are spoiled for public transport. In this neck of the woods there is 3 train services a day each way starting 20km away and to get a bus from here only meets two of them. There is talk of another service but with our recent state election just been won by a huge margin by the other side to our local Dairy Farming Dill my hopes are not high.

More important our nearest sketchy Electronics retailer is 3 hours away or 4 hours for a decent one. Mail order is king here but I miss 'real' local shops run by people with knowledge and passion (she sold 5 or 6 years ago the new owner screwed it in 3)

We are indeed. But do we need it now? The world is better now than it ever was in this side of things.

When I was a kid I was stuck with Maplin mail order (which was shit) or the local Tandy shop (same as US radio shack) which was a franchise shop. None of the big resellers (like RS etc) would even talk to you unless you had an account. The shop was 4 miles away and literally never had anything in stock and the guy who ran it seriously just wanted out. My only source of parts were local jumble sales, car boot sales and the local junk shop (all also 4 miles away). Once or twice a year I'd get taken to a hamfest or electronics fair if I was lucky. Test gear was a no really. I chanced upon my first scope at a car boot sale for £5 (single trace telequipment thing - think it was an S61).

When I started driving, the next nearest shops were Cirkit distribution (40 mile round trip) and Maplin at Southend (95 mile round trip).

Now: ebay / RS / China. Test gear coming out of my ears. All the parts I want delivered to my door for pocket change from the other side of the planet or even locally. Yesterday I ordered £0.40 of parts (resistors) from RS at 7:30pm. They just arrived 10 minutes ago. Amazing!

Well I'm with Cerebus on this Royal mail has gone down hill rapidly since privatisation and public transport likewise. I used to work in public transport and back in the day it was nothing to see on my local town route 3 double deckers, 1 service bus and 2 relief buses on a service which was a 10 minute service normally. Where I lived, I was served by route 44A, and 44B (10 minute intervals on both routes) and a 41 route (15 minute) and there was still plenty of cars on the roads as well. Of course this was when it was a nationalised industry and fares were attractive enough to entice people out of their cars onto buses. Since they were privatised, they have declined to the point where now the services are 15 minutes and 30 minutes and are single deckers and a relief, well their not heard of anymore.

It is actually cheaper to drive into town then bus it, and this even more of an incentive if your a family doing that trip, you save loads and have the convenience of going when you like, door to door almost. Is it far better to have a bus carrying 40 people @ £1 a head then the same bus with only 4 or 5 on board @£5 a head? Given that most cars tend to be during the working day, single occupancy, each bus has the potential to take 40 cars off the road with the reduced wear and tear on the roads, reduced pollution and reduced traffic congestion and the buses would make more money as result.

When it was nationalised, the fairs were subsidised through tax. That's mostly how TFL operates in London now: via business rates and taxation schemes.

And ironically the first people to complain about local taxation to support infrastructure are the people who benefited from it. So buses cost what buses cost now.

Anyway who the hell wants to get on a bus somewhere when you can drive? Cars fit in the average income budget now.

Yes, the 7B53 is quite common and nothing too fancy.
But I like the 7603 (which I consider the starters drug of these mainframes) way more than the 468 that's sitting somewhere in my shelves. Afair, the 468 is just the 465 with that digital storage added, so from my experience, the 465 timebase is slightly different (can display more traces) from the 7B53, but does the same in gross overview.

Yes I had a 7603 and may have another one soon

[med6753]

Public transportation? What's that? No such animal in my neck of the woods.  Either drive or (long) walk.

[beanflying]

Our large cities are paying for reliance on Cars and private transport. Expectation of being able to go point to point when you want does have a huge advantage in convenience but parking $ kill some of it in the big smoke. If I am off to the big smoke it is cheaper for me to pay for a full fare first class ticket over driving and I still have $20-30 spare for Taxi's on a day trip if I need to move around the suburbs a bit.

For a Kid wanting to get into Electronics at a component level like most of us did lack of Bricks and Mortar is a barrier but the diversity of Micro based projects and toys by mail order we would have killed for back in the day. Gee I am so old 

Public transportation? What's that? No such animal in my neck of the woods.  Either drive or (long) walk.

Get much more remote than me and the Oz population would join you with zero or next to zero services.

[tggzzz]

You guys are spoiled for public transport. In this neck of the woods there is 3 train services a day each way starting 20km away and to get a bus from here only meets two of them.

That many? 10 miles from me and 10 miles outside a major city (~0.5m people) there are bus stops/routes with one service per week. And the  return service starts an hour later!

I would diagnose the cause and effect, but that would be politics that does not belong here

[CJay]

Well I'm with Cerebus on this Royal mail has gone down hill rapidly since privatisation

Royal Mail is still about the same where I live, it's not great but it works, two deliveries a day, one for letters and one for parcels, letters usually around 10:30, parcels just before 12.

and public transport likewise. I used to work in public transport and back in the day it was nothing to see on my local town route 3 double deckers, 1 service bus and 2 relief buses on a service which was a 10 minute service normally. Where I lived, I was served by route 44A, and 44B (10 minute intervals on both routes) and a 41 route (15 minute) and there was still plenty of cars on the roads as well. Of course this was when it was a nationalised industry and fares were attractive enough to entice people out of their cars onto buses. Since they were privatised, they have declined to the point where now the services are 15 minutes and 30 minutes and are single deckers and a relief, well their not heard of anymore.

It is actually cheaper to drive into town then bus it, and this even more of an incentive if your a family doing that trip, you save loads and have the convenience of going when you like, door to door almost. Is it far better to have a bus carrying 40 people @ £1 a head then the same bus with only 4 or 5 on board @£5 a head? Given that most cars tend to be during the working day, single occupancy, each bus has the potential to take 40 cars off the road with the reduced wear and tear on the roads, reduced pollution and reduced traffic congestion and the buses would make more money as result.

Public transport is a joke, TFL have it right, nowhere else in the UK that I know of has a system that works a tenth as well, up here it's disjointed, irregular, unreliable, expensive and difficult to use, if you think TFL buses, trains and tubes are bad you aint seen nothin' compared to the crappy bus service I use daily, the buses *stink*, there's often the same food waste on and under the seats for days.

[shakalnokturn]

[nixiefreqq]

Does anyone know where one might obtain HP seven segment displays for the older voltmeters? Turns out the character on my 3455A that handles the most significant digit is dead, and I hadn't noticed it simply because I hadn't needed to measure anything above 10V. The part number according to the service manual is 1990-0540.

Figure this will make an even better excuse to open the front panel and fix the sticky keys! 

these should work.

pm an address and i'll stick a couple in an envelope.  (they came out of a long gone 5345a counter)

[Specmaster]

It's really great to see fellow members rifle through their spares bins looking for parts to help other members out of a hole, long may this spirit of comradeship continue, this just has to be very best electronics forum in the world