Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Yeah brain is in the business end of the cable. Unfortunately I don't have a supply with enough grunt (4.25A @ 20V) to run it. New supply arriving tomorrow so not a big deal.

Shouldn't make a difference. If you get it to 50% or better charge with it off, all it should need is an amp or two to keep it running and charge slowly. I've run lots of laptops that call for a 4.5A brick off a 3A one. Just don't expect to play QUAKE on it when its completely dead. 

mnem
Mmmmm... Can I marry this cup of coffee? Or at least keep it somewhere as a mistress, for the occasional conjugal visit?

What do you mean...occasional visit, you lead us to believe that you and cups of coffee are joined at the hip and are in fact essential to keeping the dwagon functioning correctly, lest his fire is extinguished   

Aye... when you say it out loud, it does seem a bit ridiculous suggestion, doesn't it? 

I had hoped so to liberate myself from this strife which has befallen me since before the hamfests. I got a job, actual gainful employment, and was on the verge of financial stability when tragedy struck.(SNIP)
Radiator took a shit which cracked block for those who care. In a less wordy way of saying it; I got a job to finance TEA and now and no vehicle, meaning my budget is so full of holes i might as well call it swiss and eat it on my sandwich.

It wasn’t made by Fiat was it?

Been through this already this year as well. Cars are a pain.

'strewth, that. Alternator kakked on Franken-Cruiser a few days before my dad came down to visit over Thanksgiving; I started the project and then had to put it on hold until after he went home because it turned into a complete charlie-foxtrot.

Thanks to the car's ermm... unique engineering, this involves removing all the motor mounts, right wheel and brackets located so as to be nigh impossible to remove with the old alternator in the way, then jack the motor up so high it gets a nosebleed and hope you don't tear a AC, power steering, or coolant hose in the process. Then you can JUST get the alternator out/in around the axle shaft.    Alternately undo center motor mount, jack it halfway as high and remove the RH axle halfshaft, or remove the exhaust, exhaust manifold & alternator brackets, both of which procedures carry their own PITA process and additional parts expense. 

Fortunately for me, the torque struts were under warranty so I just ignored the leaking engine mount... I'll replace that (again) if the car lives long enough to need a timing belt (again), because you literally have to do 3/4 of that job to get the mount out. Chrysler's service procedure is "Remove engine to gain access to motor mount. See section 9 for engine removal procedure." 

Just finished THAT up yesterday interspersed with brief periods of putting up the X-Mas tree... so now taking a well-earned "Fuck-All/Fuck-Off Day". If it weren't for getting the kids this afternoon, I wouldn't even bother to put pants on. 

mnem
FA/FO FTW.

[tautech]

Just finished THAT up yesterday interspersed with brief periods of putting up the X-Mas tree... so now taking a well-earned "Fuck-All/Fuck-Off Day".

mnem
FA/FO FTW.

Known here as a CBF* day......mostly Mondays and Fridays.

* Can't be fooked.

[bd139]

@mnem: was that car made by Tektronix?

[Specmaster]

'strewth, that. Alternator kakked on Franken-Cruiser a few days before my dad came down to visit over Thanksgiving; I started the project and then had to put it on hold until after he went home because it turned into a complete charlie-foxtrot.

Thanks to the car's ermm... unique engineering, this involves removing all the motor mounts, right wheel and brackets located so as to be nigh impossible to remove with the old alternator in the way, then jack the motor up so high it gets a nosebleed and hope you don't tear a AC, power steering, or coolant hose in the process. Then you can JUST get the alternator out/in around the axle shaft.    Alternately undo center motor mount, jack it halfway as high and remove the RH axle halfshaft, or remove the exhaust, exhaust manifold & alternator brackets, both of which procedures carry their own PITA process and additional parts expense. 

Fortunately for me, the torque struts were under warranty so I just ignored the leaking engine mount... I'll replace that (again) if the car lives long enough to need a timing belt (again), because you literally have to do 3/4 of that job to get the mount out. Chrysler's service procedure is "Remove engine to gain access to motor mount. See section 9 for engine removal procedure." 

Just finished THAT up yesterday interspersed with brief periods of putting up the X-Mas tree... so now taking a well-earned "Fuck-All/Fuck-Off Day". If it weren't for getting the kids this afternoon, I wouldn't even bother to put pants on. 

mnem
FA/FO FTW.

Just so we all what a Franken-Cruiser is, I think it is this one correct? If so I didn't like them when they were launched over this side of the pond and the whole structure of the car works against easy maintenance those front wings just eat into the engine bay. The designer should be made to carry out repair work on their creations before selling to the public. It would be designed completely differently then I can tell you 

[Specmaster]

@mnem: was that car made by Tektronix?

I'd rather work on an Tektronix than that car for sure.

[bd139]

Just realised it’s a Chrysler so a Fiat so indeed

Actually one of the bastard things with my Fiat was “well the clutch and turbo are 900 quid but it’s going to cost 1000 in labour and shop fees”.

To quote our Scottish friends, they can “get teh fuck”.

[GregDunn]

Just so we all what a Franken-Cruiser is, I think it is this one correct? If so I didn't like them when they were launched over this side of the pond and the whole structure of the car works against easy maintenance those front wings just eat into the engine bay. The designer should be made to carry out repair work on their creations before selling to the public. It would be designed completely differently then I can tell you 

Those things also have miserable visibility out the rear quarters.  It was intended to be an example of retro-styling when that was in vogue, and no one apparently realized that the old 30s/40s cars which looked like them also had terrible visibility.  At least they had huge engine compartments in those days, making maintenance much less of an issue.

[bitseeker]

Has anyone successfully sent Microsoft a bill for lost time and productivity due to their failed product 

About to do a clean install as that is all that is left untried - data backed up, software and plugins written down. Now for several more hours pain 

Yes I know a large Microsoft partner consultancy who dragged them through court after extensive data loss caused by a problem in Windows Server 2003 that cost them nearly £300k in lost business. What did they get? Fuck all. Turns out Microsoft roll out the lawyers and they have really expensive ones who drink in the same bars as the other legal professionals. Cash changes hands behind the scenes, lawyers say not to proceed any further, case goes away.

MS can also just drag a case out until the opposition can no longer afford to fight. Of course, they're not the only such deep-pocketed behemoths.

[bitseeker]

Had a few minutes so got into the exploding Apple charger.

 



There's a hole in my bucket, err IC.

No suicide capacitors. Amazing the noise that IC going pop made.

Wow, bd, you turned it into hard-top convertible.

I really despise how hot Apple's power supplies get. The inrush current is pretty annoying as well.

[bitseeker]

I had hoped so to liberate myself from this strife which has befallen me since before the hamfests. I got a job, actual gainful employment, and was on the verge of financial stability when tragedy struck.  The motor carriage which has conveyed me from hither to yon was struck down in its prime by fickle fate. Fortune can only frown on my efforts for it has dealt me the most miserable hand, a crack developed on the carriage's core. Delivered from the bosom of TEAly salvation to the ravenous claws of murphy himself i find myself now employed though with no enlightenment anywhere in my immediate future. Woe is me!

Radiator took a shit which cracked block for those who care. In a less wordy way of saying it; I got a job to finance TEA and now and no vehicle, meaning my budget is so full of holes i might as well call it swiss and eat it on my sandwich.

Congrats on the new job, neo. Sorry to hear about the car's heart attack. It's always something, yet TEA has a way of persevering.

[bitseeker]

Just so we all what a Franken-Cruiser is, I think it is this one correct? If so I didn't like them when they were launched over this side of the pond and the whole structure of the car works against easy maintenance those front wings just eat into the engine bay. The designer should be made to carry out repair work on their creations before selling to the public. It would be designed completely differently then I can tell you 

SWMBO calls that a hearse, regardless of color.

[mnementh]

'strewth, that. Alternator kakked on Franken-Cruiser a few days before my dad came down to visit over Thanksgiving; I started the project and then had to put it on hold until after he went home because it turned into a complete charlie-foxtrot. (SNIP)
Just finished THAT up yesterday interspersed with brief periods of putting up the X-Mas tree... so now taking a well-earned "Fuck-All/Fuck-Off Day". If it weren't for getting the kids this afternoon, I wouldn't even bother to put pants on. 

mnem
FA/FO FTW.

     Just so we all what a Franken-Cruiser is, I think it is this one correct? If so I didn't like them when they were launched over this side of the pond and the whole structure of the car works against easy maintenance those front wings just eat into the engine bay. The designer should be made to carry out repair work on their creations before selling to the public. It would be designed completely differently then I can tell you 

FU....!

Not only did you find A PT Cruiser, you found MINE. Right down to the year, color and trim package.  *Cue Twilight Zone Music* Even has the same wheels.  See mine above next to your pic. 

No modern vehicle is EASY to work on... I grew up with F-150s where you could crawl in under the vehicle and up through the engine compartment out the hood. Shoehorn a Caddy 500 in place of a 302? In and bolted down in a matter of hours.

I've long said that automotive engineers must be the worst kind of sadistic fucks ever released upon an unwitting world; I've often imagined them showing pictures of their work to each other around the water cooler...

"There, you see that bolt in the door hinge? There's no earthly reason in the world it couldn't be right here, 3/4 of an inch closer to the opening; hell, it doesn't really even need to exist at ALL. But now, the mechanic has to take the fender half off to get the door off the car or align it against the body because we welded the other side of the hinge, and the hinge pin is swaged in place." 

"Awesome work! KA-CHING for the dealership!!!"  "Here, let me show you how I fucked them with this bell-housing bolt you can't get to without pulling the radiator out of the vehicle..."

@mnem: was that car made by Tektronix?

I'd rather work on an Tektronix than that car for sure.

Almost as bad... The car was originally designed as a retro-rod look, by the same award-winning designer as did the Prowler and later was stolen away to do the Chevy HHR. The guy who designed the CAR did an amazing job; I loved the PT Cruiser for its looks since it was new, and as a vehicle it was literally the next best thing to a pickup truck; cavernous cargo area make it amazingly useful, and an extremely low lift-over and high roofline make as easy to get in and out of as a full-size pickup truck. Visibility is great; much better than any modern shoebox or pregnant shoebox SUV that pretty much NEED a camera in the back to keep you from killing yourself.

It was SUPPOSED to get the all-new aluminum "Japan-buster" 4-cylinder and 6-speed AT that Chrysler had in development. Then Daimler-Benz got involved and deliberately tried to kill the thing by forcing them to redesign around the Neon platform, which 4-cylinder, iron-block shit-for-counterbalancing design drivetrain was already one of the most hated on the planet. EVEN SO... the car caught on, and if it had received anything but the outright aggressive neglect it got under Daimler-Chrysler, I have no doubt some evolution of it would still exist, just like the Beetle.

But... it is NOT what it could have been. My Cruiser and I have a love/hate relationship; I've loved the car as a car since day one. It hates to see me with more than $20 in my pocket. The Neon drivetrain is prehistoric, unreliable and known for poor economy due to simply being underpowered for a car that was meant to have a much more efficient engine.

As a vehicle... to use and drive... it is great, as long as you don't expect it to be anything more exciting than grandma's grocery getter, or in my case, a station wagon for the responsible father of two small kids. 

It's the reliability... and the PITA factor of repairing it... that's what kills me. I bought it cheap because it had a banged-up rear corner, and it only had 60K miles. Now it has 125K, and I've had it die catastrophically 3 times.

And you know what I wind up driving when it dies? My wife's old Saturn, which has 250K on it and still runs like a watch. Aside from normal consumables like batteries, brakes and tires, the only actual wear-out failure repair I've done on it was a radiator and a catalytic converter.   

mnem
*Off to pick up the kidz*

[Mr. Scram]

Fuel consumption is apparently not too great on those either, due to the body style not being terribly aerodynamic. Yanks might not care as much, though.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Just so we all what a Franken-Cruiser is, I think it is this one correct? If so I didn't like them when they were launched over this side of the pond and the whole structure of the car works against easy maintenance those front wings just eat into the engine bay. The designer should be made to carry out repair work on their creations before selling to the public. It would be designed completely differently then I can tell you 

SWMBO calls that a hearse, regardless of color.

That thing is so nauseating ugly, there ought to be a burka for it.

[bd139]

Bad news on the 2235. Diodes in. Didn't fix the problem. Pulled the anode lead off ran it up and the damn thing is rock solid but no PDA.

Feckity fecking multiplier is shot 



Now to find one (the hard bit).

Also this is the first time I've discharged a CRT for a while. I forgot about the great big crack they make!

[Specmaster]

And you know what I wind up driving when it dies? My wife's old Saturn, which has 250K on it and still runs like a watch. Aside from normal consumables like batteries, brakes and tires, the only actual wear-out failure repair I've done on it was a radiator and a catalytic converter.   

mnem
*Off to pick up the kidz*

You yanks sure have a love affair with some pretty ugly cars, don't yah  This is about the only photo I can find on the Saturn which only marginally improves in the looking stakes .
That being said, I don't however personally care a flying fuck about what my car looks like externally because when I'm driving it, I can't see the outside of it  I judge a car by what it is like inside and how it drives etc as that is where I will spend a lot of my time, especially before I retired, the car was my mobile office as well and a lot of people used to say that my car was ugly but I just smile as I know that its good enough to be used to as a presidential car, which is a Skoda Superb 2013 L&K and the car shown here is the actual presidential car, same as mine except for the colour and I don't have a flag pole on mine, There is even a model made of the presidents car, photo attached.

When I retired I purchased the car, which was my company car for 3 years and is now 5 years old and has never put a foot wrong, it is literally the best car I have ever owned and I love it, regardless of what others might think about it. 


And here is my car, parked up on my local airfield.
   

[Specmaster]

Bad news on the 2235. Diodes in. Didn't fix the problem. Pulled the anode lead off ran it up and the damn thing is rock solid but no PDA.

Feckity fecking multiplier is shot 



Now to find one (the hard bit).

Also this is the first time I've discharged a CRT for a while. I forgot about the great big crack they make!

Your currently not having a lot of luck in the TEA arena, just be careful not to get zapped when you discharge the tube and its circuit. I know you've been bitten  before but don't get caught out again. 

[bd139]

No zaps. I have misplaced my HV probe somewhere though so I bodged up something with resistors and heat shrink and soldered it across the relevant test points. Worked nicely

[beanflying]

Wet Grass was always a good test for Electric Fences before touching or peeing on one. Should work for CRT screens too shouldn't it 

Edit: The PT Cruiser is something else to pee on or at least LOL at 

[GregDunn]

And you know what I wind up driving when it dies? My wife's old Saturn, which has 250K on it and still runs like a watch. Aside from normal consumables like batteries, brakes and tires, the only actual wear-out failure repair I've done on it was a radiator and a catalytic converter.   

mnem
*Off to pick up the kidz*

My wife and I both bought brand new Saturns back in '98, and they literally ran until the engines wore out.  I think GM killed Saturn because it was putting the Olds and Pontiac lines out of business with its superb reliability and decent styling (the sedan, not the wagon).  Those cars were the gas mileage champions in the family, too, until the wife bought a Prius.

[mnementh]

Wet Grass was always a good test for Electric Fences before touching or peeing on one. Should work for CRT screens too shouldn't it 

Edit: The PT Cruiser is something else to pee on or at least LOL at 

Ugly or not, it still beats all these damned euro-sedans and SuckUVs that all look like a dumptruck raped a electric shaver.   

mnem
Y'all can kiss my scaly dragon ass. 

[tggzzz]

Fuel consumption is apparently not too great on those either, due to the body style not being terribly aerodynamic. Yanks might not care as much, though.

Rules of thumb...

"MPG" is a singularly useless metric. If I go from here to the nearest hackspace (i.e. city centre), my small car manages ~40mpg. I could easily increase that to ~60mpg - by going 50 miles up the motorway and back at 45mph. What matters is the fuel consumed, not the mpg!

In cities with stop-start traffic, weight of vehicle plus load is more important.
On the open road, no hills, no wind, aerodynamics are more important.

[mnementh]

And you know what I wind up driving when it dies? My wife's old Saturn, which has 250K on it and still runs like a watch. Aside from normal consumables like batteries, brakes and tires, the only actual wear-out failure repair I've done on it was a radiator and a catalytic converter.   

mnem
*Off to pick up the kidz*

My wife and I both bought brand new Saturns back in '98, and they literally ran until the engines wore out.  I think GM killed Saturn because it was putting the Olds and Pontiac lines out of business with its superb reliability and decent styling (the sedan, not the wagon).  Those cars were the gas mileage champions in the family, too, until the wife bought a Prius.

We've had 3. Wife bought the one we still have brand new in '00, it still gets ~30MPG. I later bought a '92 that lasted to 280K before dying as a victim of Saturn-on-Saturn violence with my bro-in-law at the wheel. (He also tried to kill my F-150, but just made it ugly. er.) After that I got the euro-sedan model, an '02 LS300. Bought it with a seized engine, paid top-dollar for a 18k mi motor from an '05 to put in it, and drove it for 8 years, when it was run over by a jackhole in a jacked-up 1-ton 4x4. I drove it for another 8 months looking like this after replacing the strut and doing an "eyeball & string" alignment.

I could've made it pass inspection with a new fender, headlight & hood, but made the damn-fool decision to yank the motor out and build another L300. It still sits, accessories and all, in a corner of my garage.

mnem
"I've seen that movie too."

[tggzzz]

Just realised it’s a Chrysler so a Fiat so indeed

Actually one of the bastard things with my Fiat was “well the clutch and turbo are 900 quid but it’s going to cost 1000 in labour and shop fees”.

To quote our Scottish friends, they can “get teh fuck”.

Blimey.

I've been feeling hard done by because my 2004 Mazda 2 needed a service (the first in 5 years since I change the oil myself), and £150 for a coil spring (keeps the front wheel away from the wheel arch).

The first strange thing was that the coil spring spontaneously snapped while the car was sitting in the drive. The second strange thing is that within a week the other coil spring snapped while the car was sitting in the drive.

[tggzzz]

Wet Grass was always a good test for Electric Fences before touching or peeing on one.

Taught my daughter that electricity can bite, by getting her to touch an electric fence (without grass).

But I was kind. I told her to do it lightly and with the back of her hand, so she wouldn't grip it