Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[worsthorse]

...     I bought it for parts, mainly mechanical, but who knows, maybe it goes into the rehab queue.

My wife, as she watches me lug it downstairs, how many signal generators do you actually need?

Good question, that. 

The part which really should worry you is that she's seen you lug enough of them that she knows a signal generator when she sees one. 

Oh, my! I hadn't even realized that.

Neither did I.     Did I tell you that the last time I said, umm, hunay, did I mention that the truck bed is full of gear I bought to keep it from going into a dumpster? She replied, Do you need help unloading it? 

[Kosmic]

I just found a HP 8566B for 450$ locally. Probably broken but I'm so tempted to pick it up. 

I think I'm getting better with my addiction.

I was able to resist for almost 2 months. Yesterday I contacted the seller again, unit still for sale, was able to get the price down to 400$. So tempting.

[med6753]

More work on the Tek 475A. Decided to risk the balance of the tantalum change out. Most of the remaining are 1uf and 2.2uf. I have good stock of them so if they start giving trouble I'll change them out.

Checked the 1KHz vertical compensation on both channels 5mV all the way up to 5V and it's excellent. No adjustments required. The last time this scope was calibrated was in 1994. But what I find with former IBM equipment is that it's typically in real good shape and not abused.

Here's a 20MHz square wave from the Heath IG-4244 Scope Calibrator.



WCH....if you want to do a minimum change out of the tantalums with some level of confidence that the scope will continue to give good service here is the list of the ones I changed. Considerably smaller than total number but I think it's worth the risk. (It's all 4.7uf and larger) :

C291
C570
C913
C967
C1317
C1318 – This is a must do.
C1428
C1448
C1458
C1468
C1478

[mnementh]

...     I bought it for parts, mainly mechanical, but who knows, maybe it goes into the rehab queue.

My wife, as she watches me lug it downstairs, how many signal generators do you actually need?

Good question, that. 

The part which really should worry you is that she's seen you lug enough of them that she knows a signal generator when she sees one. 

Oh, my! I hadn't even realized that.

Neither did I.     Did I tell you that the last time I said, umm, hunay, did I mention that the truck bed is full of gear I bought to keep it from going into a dumpster? She replied, Do you need help unloading it? 

Ooooh... You got a keeper there. Almost as good as mine, who has crossed over the threshold to enabler. 

FRSky Taranis TX, T12 soldering station bits, countless flight controllers and programmers, and my 1054Z are but a few of many nerdly gifts from this woman. 

mnem
*Waiting for the dentist or someone like him*

[mnementh]

Nice work on the dial! 

Hear, hear! I was so caught up in my own little movie I forgot... well done! 

mnem
*toddles off to enjoy the comforts of a warm bed and warmer wife*

Time to don your Flame resistant Bubblewrap suit me thinks 

Tinkerdwagons are fireproof. And a little smoke is considered normal for my kind. 

mnem
My wife is a pervy little dwagon fancier, and I'm her pervy little dwagon.  

[0culus]

I just found a HP 8566B for 450$ locally. Probably broken but I'm so tempted to pick it up. 

I think I'm getting better with my addiction.

I was able to resist for almost 2 months. Yesterday I contacted the seller again, unit still for sale, was able to get the price down to 400$. So tempting.

That’s a great price.  I’d do it.

[GreyWoolfe]

Baby grrl hugs are the best. 

No baby grrls here but 10 YO granddaughter hugs are pretty damn nice.  Almost as good as Mrs GreyWoolfe's hugs.

[Ero-Shan]

I just found a HP 8566B for 450$ locally. Probably broken but I'm so tempted to pick it up. 

I think I'm getting better with my addiction.

I was able to resist for almost 2 months. Yesterday I contacted the seller again, unit still for sale, was able to get the price down to 400$. So tempting.

Even I would do it. 

That’s a great price.  I’d do it.

[Kosmic]

Thank you for your encouraging words. You’re not helping at all! 

[0culus]

Thank you for your encouraging words. You’re not helping at all! 

 

I'm down for more TEA no matter what! All joking aside, the 8568B is a great bit of kit and for that price absolutely worth picking up and dealing with any issues it may or may not have.

[bd139]

Just got an original Fluke 87, usual dirt with some faded display segments for a particularly low amount of cash on an offer. Hopefully just needs a good scrub and some zebra strips cleaning. Fingers crossed for me.

Full TEA action at the moment. Bought 9 items in the last month now 

[Kosmic]

Full TEA action at the moment. Bought 9 items in the last month now 

Woaa good job 

On my side I have been TEAing a bit too hard recently, paypal account is at 0. I guess the sustainable hobby approach (buy, fix, sell) is not working that good for me. Need to sell some stuff.

[bd139]

Still got quite a bit of budget left here as I sold a heap of amateur radio kit. Could be dangerous 

Annoyingly looks like I need to find an input jack for this Fluke 87. There goes £34 of it!

[mnementh]

Neat link from on the Tekscopes posts with some excellent work with photos too: https://www.qsl.net/ct1dmk/wbond_ex.html

   That is some hardcore "dark arts" shit right there.    Go up one level and you can see how he built the tools to do that work. Certainly NOT your typical "crank 'er up till she burns!!!" or 67 pages of variations on a single balun design HAM operator bloggery.

mnem
moo! 

   
Well... makes me feel better my stereomicroscope project is heading in the right direction (the video is pathetic... though the thumbnail looks decent):

Oh, wow... okay, speaking as someone who's tried to do what you're doing using a microscope camera, I'm going to advise you to stop right where you are, put your objectives in place and actually try to use the thing. I think you'll find what I did years ago; that monitor stands and swingarms just are not stable enough to use this way. Just touching the assembly to use it had mine wiggling all over the place; you couldn't get it to focus. One or two pivots yeah, that can work. But fully articulated like that, you're just beating your head against a wall. 

In the meantime, has anyone used one of these:   found here whilst procrastinating at my desk: https://www.circuitspecialists.com/csi835b.html to preheat PCBs or to do reflow? Seems too good to be true ( but then I am a cynical old bas---d ) and I haven't done much SMD being tiny part, solder paste, and microscope phobic.

   
I watched this video which is great at detailing BGA reballing (see links in groups.io message board thread for more regarding this system: https://groups.io/g/SoftwareControlledHamRadio/message/5388 ) I've gotten as far as have a dedicated hot plate griddle to use though need to upgrade with thermocouple and maybe a PID controller.

Jeebus... that seems like a crazy amount of work and fiddly-bits to not pay $100-150 on a proper IR preheater, which will come with 90% of what he cobbled together by hand.

But Kudos to him finding a good use for a Drake T121... Ifni knows they were worthless as a DTT receiver. 

And from my Youtube feed NON Electronics  My Dad's Uncle had one of these on an Irrigation pump and when I started work there was still a few of them on Piston Pumps (and a stack of Lister or Southern Cross Diesels) shame they went for CNC Alu and not Cast main blocks. Do I 'need one' NO, do I 'Want One' maybe 

https://youtu.be/TuRX_qIaIgk

Having machined a few of these and a few Stirling engines from scratch, once they're running the novelty wears off fast. I gave every one of them away long ago.

I actually find this much more interesting, and it is quite a bit cheaper...

https://www.banggood.com/Stark-5V-Digital-Maglev-Heavy-Load-Magnetic-Levitation-Efficient-Power-Saving-p-1346192.html

mnem
"Time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so."

[mnementh]

Baby grrl hugs are the best. 

Enjoy them while they last.

They mutate into a variant of "Daddy, stop wrapping me in cotton wool". With determination and luck, 7 years later[1] they mutate back into "Thanks for not wrapping me in cotton wool".

[1] "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."

Oh, I remember. I also remember grand-dad trying to explain to me that being smart is not the same as having knowledge, and here I am now with my son having almost the same exact conversation over and over; I can't count the number of times I've told him this:

"Being smart and WANTING to know everything is NOT the same as ACTUALLY knowing everything. When you realize that you don't know everything, you'll be well on your way to adulthood. When you learn enough to guess how little you really know, then you'll have achieved some measure of wisdom."

Baby grrl... well, she's LD, so we're getting to enjoy that state a little longer. But potty training for years on end is starting to wear thin. 

mnem
"To become old and wise, you must first survive being young and foolish."

[0culus]

Shahriar playing with more gear I can't afford. 

[grizewald]

FFS windows just hosed itself on me while trying to make a new dial for this GDO. Having a week off the turd thus now using xubuntu.

Really need a poop emoji on this forum.

This is the right emoticon for that situation:

[0culus]

Nuke it from orbit!

[worsthorse]

Shahriar playing with more gear I can't afford. 

I was afraid to look but I am guessing that scope cost more than my truck. New. And he took it apart?   

And in TEA related news, I made an offer on a TG501 for the TM500 rack that I did not expect to be accepted. So of course it was. 

[0culus]

Shahriar playing with more gear I can't afford. 

I was afraid to look but I am guessing that scope cost more than my truck. New. And he took it apart?   

And in TEA related news, I made an offer on a TG501 for the TM500 rack that I did not expect to be accepted. So of course it was. 

Sometimes I've noticed in other episodes that the manufacturer sends him demo boards for teardowns rather than him actually disassembling his working scope. 

[mnementh]

$35K worth of inconvenienced electrons. My wife's new Rav4 cost $26K. The house I grew up in; with 140 acres, a tool shed and 2-story barn, cost $28K in 1975.

[EDIT] That's 130K now. $38K is still entirely too large a chunk of that for a single tool. [/EDIT]

I sure hope he's poking around a demo board... 

mnem
*Still annoyed with eBay*

[mnementh]

Holy crap.....those guys did NOT age well.    I'm sure I'm much older than them and I think I look 100% better. Where did they run too? The old age home? 

Like my mom used to tell me... "It's not the years baby; it's the mileage." 

mnem
*sigh* Miss you, mom.

[tautech]

Shahriar playing with more gear I can't afford. 

And he's the very best in his field too.
Just getting product onto Shahriar's bench is a marketing win.

[bitseeker]

Shahriar playing with more gear I can't afford. 

I was afraid to look but I am guessing that scope cost more than my truck. New. And he took it apart?   

I guess you missed out on his teardown of a Keysight UXR scope. The 110GHz 4-channel model has an MSRP of US$1.3 million (note: he didn't tear down the top-end model, but it's pretty close).

[bitseeker]

I just found a HP 8566B for 450$ locally. Probably broken but I'm so tempted to pick it up. 

I think I'm getting better with my addiction.

I was able to resist for almost 2 months. Yesterday I contacted the seller again, unit still for sale, was able to get the price down to 400$. So tempting.

You're still holding out at $400? That's quite stoic.