Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[LapTop006]

Duracells are all bastards. Banned from this house.

I did a drawing a few weeks ago in a meeting of a dying duracell bunny crawling its last few feet while vomiting and shitting acid after the powerpoint was scuppered by a leaking AA in the projector remote. I'll see if I can find it but I think I may have shredded that notebook now.

Well I went through all my notebooks and couldn't find it. However with some luck my eldest was wondering what I was up to so I explained and she decided to draw it again. She's even more vile than me.

(As anyone who's had it will tell you, the sign is accurate)

[beanflying]

Gastro Family funny memories more than once recounted. Dad was a Home Dialysis patient and suffering at the time, ass perched over a bucket, blood coming and going from one arm and his head over another bucket held by Mum.

Inappropriately brought up over the years that followed

[bd139]

Grim. 

I have unfortunately had Norovirus. It took out the kids' school and all the parents about 5 years ago.

[tggzzz]

Norovirus is yet another reason not to have a holiday on a cruise ship.

[bd139]

That's way behind the worries of boredom and being trapped in a tin can with scum for me.

[tggzzz]

Indeed; I did say yet another

Being trapped in a shopping mall is a close approximation to hell.

OTOH, taking the local floating bus service on the backwaters in Kerala is pleasant for a day. Might take the post boat up the Norwegian fjords, someday. Backpacking around the Aegean is also fun, and really brings the mythological Lotus Eaters and Sirens to mind.

[FransW]

Bobby McFerrin:

Don't worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy now

Frans

[bd139]

Indeed; I did say yet another

Being trapped in a shopping mall is a close approximation to hell.

OTOH, taking the local floating bus service on the backwaters in Kerala is pleasant for a day. Might take the post boat up the Norwegian fjords, someday. Backpacking around the Aegean is also fun, and really brings the mythological Lotus Eaters and Sirens to mind.

Agree with shopping mall.

Switzerland is fun for backpacking if you can do a climb. I walked this trail about 18 years ago and will be doing it again next year, hopefully with an Elecraft K2 in my pack:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.508569,7.7522019,3a,75y,150.83h,94.28t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPAJcCtJJEfcYsoGGLsDZvJo4NzRFz4q1LdnUXd!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPAJcCtJJEfcYsoGGLsDZvJo4NzRFz4q1LdnUXd%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya225.63847-ro0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096

There's a nice cafe at the top which serves beer and disdain for foreigners:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.5099389,7.7719387,3a,75y,69.22h,90.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOfxjo2dJpf_rAsTE7r6004YEVhMfRfdDF4G4Ly!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOfxjo2dJpf_rAsTE7r6004YEVhMfRfdDF4G4Ly%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya358.22757-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

[Ice-Tea]

Weeeellll...

A bunch of Keithely 213s. Some are likely to have some issues, like this one:

Labelled as channel one not working. So I popped it open.

Not much to it. Some digital stuff + IEE488 and channel modules. Shouldn't be too hard to trace the fault or in the worst case swap out a few modules.

Voltage range selection is nasty, though. Looks like universal range if you look at the backplate but inside there's s a voltage selector switch.

[mnementh]

No different dates. This causes us much panic every year whenever you lot go mother's day crazy.

Edit: I'm happy with my mother. She complains that it is a commercialised extension of a religious holiday (lent) here and refuses to acknowledge its existence or accept any gifts as she's a raving anti-capitalist and atheist.

Oh pewp. Guess what my wife never got? Yup. Her mother's day cards from myself and the kidzz. I was signing them and had to stash them away when she came out of her office; then we went to see the Pokemon Defective movie and they never got finished. 

Well, she'll forgive me as long as I remember our anniversary... *checks back of her picture in my wallet* ...tomorrow.   

The mighty Texan eagle just dropped this, thanks Mnementh !  Clue, it will help my "handicapped/crippled" scope (literally). 

*Imagining a paraplegic 2465 on crutches*     Glad they got tooya, buddy!   

I was worrying, after you described your postal service, that they would wind up languishing for years upon years years in a forgotten corner of some dystopian post-corporapolyptic black hole sorting warehouse out of Brazil , only to be ultimately delivered by a leathery-faced octogenarian postal carrier of indeterminate gender to your last surviving relative... 

mnem

[med6753]

Bobby McFerrin:

Don't worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy now

Frans

I'm happy because I'm not on a cruise ship nor stuck in a mall and I don't have norovirus. 

[med6753]

Oh pewp. Guess what my wife never got? Yup. Her mother's day cards from myself and the kidzz. I was signing them and had to stash them away when she came out of her office; then we went to see the Pokemon Defective movie and they never got finished. 

Well, she'll forgive me as long as I remember our anniversary... *checks back of her picture in my wallet* ...tomorrow.   

mnem

If you happen to forget I have a doghouse you can have for free. 

[Specmaster]

Indeed; I did say yet another

Being trapped in a shopping mall is a close approximation to hell.

OTOH, taking the local floating bus service on the backwaters in Kerala is pleasant for a day. Might take the post boat up the Norwegian fjords, someday. Backpacking around the Aegean is also fun, and really brings the mythological Lotus Eaters and Sirens to mind.

Agree with shopping mall.

Switzerland is fun for backpacking if you can do a climb. I walked this trail about 18 years ago and will be doing it again next year, hopefully with an Elecraft K2 in my pack:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.508569,7.7522019,3a,75y,150.83h,94.28t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPAJcCtJJEfcYsoGGLsDZvJo4NzRFz4q1LdnUXd!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPAJcCtJJEfcYsoGGLsDZvJo4NzRFz4q1LdnUXd%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya225.63847-ro0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096

There's a nice cafe at the top which serves beer and disdain for foreigners:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.5099389,7.7719387,3a,75y,69.22h,90.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOfxjo2dJpf_rAsTE7r6004YEVhMfRfdDF4G4Ly!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOfxjo2dJpf_rAsTE7r6004YEVhMfRfdDF4G4Ly%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya358.22757-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

Disdain for foreigner's and you want to go back for more[emoji11]

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

[Kosmic]

Interesting. How flat are they, though? I'm less concerned about them going beyond rated 3dB and more concerned about significant peaks and valleys within the operating range.

Ok Ok, will improve my setup and produce some proper results with screenshot and everything 

Scopes are about how waveforms look, so a good test is simply  a voltage step (not impulse). That also takes other probing issues into account.

Agreed. On my side, I was trying to evaluate the frequency response of the probes. So yesterday, I tested a setup with a noise source (DC-1.5G) that is fairly flat between DC - 500Mhz. I guess bitseeker has a similar goal.

Spent most of the evening fighting my scope though, trying to get the screengrab working with my PC. After trying GPIB, then rs232, then gpib again. I was finally able to get something working with rs232. 

[mnementh]

And you wonder why you still see cellphone pics of waveforms online... 

mnem
Polaroid doesn't have "boot issues" or "incompatible protocols".

[tautech]

Weeeellll...

A bunch of Keithely 213s. Some are likely to have some issues, like this one:

Labelled as channel one not working. So I popped it open.

Not much to it. Some digital stuff + IEE488 and channel modules. Shouldn't be too hard to trace the fault or in the worst case swap out a few modules.

Voltage range selection is nasty, though. Looks like universal range if you look at the backplate but inside there's s a voltage selector switch.

Yeah that could really spoil your day if you didn't RTFM. 

[Specmaster]

In case you missed or ignored the warning that bd139 posted here a couple of weeks back about leaded solder being illegal for hobbyists to purchase now, but companies can still obtain it, be warned again, this is serious and is going global as this video will explain.  Act now and source enough supply while you can as there are a few suppliers out there who are still happy to sell it to us. 

[bd139]

Indeed. For those of us in the UK: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/312232426709

Edit: to note, if I buy it through my Ltd company and then sell it to someone I can be fined up to £20,000. Fun fun fun.

You can work around it as RoHS exemption is possible under "Equipment designed for research and development"

[Specmaster]

Switzerland is fun for backpacking if you can do a climb. I walked this trail about 18 years ago and will be doing it again next year, hopefully with an Elecraft K2 in my pack:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.508569,7.7522019,3a,75y,150.83h,94.28t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPAJcCtJJEfcYsoGGLsDZvJo4NzRFz4q1LdnUXd!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPAJcCtJJEfcYsoGGLsDZvJo4NzRFz4q1LdnUXd%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya225.63847-ro0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096

There's a nice cafe at the top which serves beer and disdain for foreigners:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.5099389,7.7719387,3a,75y,69.22h,90.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOfxjo2dJpf_rAsTE7r6004YEVhMfRfdDF4G4Ly!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOfxjo2dJpf_rAsTE7r6004YEVhMfRfdDF4G4Ly%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya358.22757-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

I doubt anyone gets a good nights sleep with those sleeping arrangements, especially if I was there, apparently I snore like a pig 

[Specmaster]

Indeed. For those of us in the UK: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/312232426709

Edit: to note, if I buy it through my Ltd company and then sell it to someone I can be fined up to £20,000. Fun fun fun.

You can work around it as RoHS exemption is possible under "Equipment designed for research and development"

So then, are they effectively saying that lead-free solder is effectively a one time use only and that if you need to do a repair on it, you're out of luck?  and this is progress   

[bd139]

So then, are they effectively saying that lead-free solder is effectively a one time use only and that if you need to do a repair on it, you're out of luck?  and this is progress   

Well they're basically trying to get a lot of the nasty shit we put in landfill off the market. Literally all the consumer crap we've disposed of over the last 40 years has turned into a massive public health issues. Hell I've chucked a few hundred grams of lead in the ground over the last decade. The stuff seeps into the water table slowly and then drinking water supply eventually and causes all sorts of public health issues. That's the progress and I can't really complain about that! This is scandalously as large as the old leaded gasoline/petrol thing.

For this we are inconvenienced which is ultimately fine but a pain in the short term. This is just the last chance before the switch over.

All exemptions are off after 22nd July 2019 apart from "fuck off" industries (defence / space basically who will tell auditors and public health to fuck off).

We will have to get used to lead free at some point. If I run out of the large amount of leaded stuff I bought I'll switch. This is merely to absorb the immediate change so people can argue for a decade about the best lead free solder for hand soldering so I don't have to work it out

An important thing is that there is no deadline on spares disposal so it's legal to maintain purchased stocks of components and solders which have been already purchased.

[Housedad]

I have some of those probes as well that I got of an Ebay seller who seems to deal with probes in the main. They look and work like the genuine article IMO, I have gotten other probes that came with scopes and by comparison for build quality and feel, are far better then those, if I ever need more I'll happy to get them from the same seller. [emoji106]

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

I'm looking for some probes.  Who was the seller you got yours from?

[Specmaster]

So then, are they effectively saying that lead-free solder is effectively a one time use only and that if you need to do a repair on it, you're out of luck?  and this is progress   

Well they're basically trying to get a lot of the nasty shit we put in landfill off the market. Literally all the consumer crap we've disposed of over the last 40 years has turned into a massive public health issues. Hell I've chucked a few hundred grams of lead in the ground over the last decade. The stuff seeps into the water table slowly and then drinking water supply eventually and causes all sorts of public health issues. That's the progress and I can't really complain about that! This is scandalously as large as the old leaded gasoline/petrol thing.

For this we are inconvenienced which is ultimately fine but a pain in the short term. This is just the last chance before the switch over.

All exemptions are off after 22nd July 2019 apart from "fuck off" industries (defence / space basically who will tell auditors and public health to fuck off).

We will have to get used to lead free at some point. If I run out of the large amount of leaded stuff I bought I'll switch. This is merely to absorb the immediate change so people can argue for a decade about the best lead free solder for hand soldering so I don't have to work it out

An important thing is that there is no deadline on spares disposal so it's legal to maintain purchased stocks of components and solders which have been already purchased.

This is all well and good apart one thing, I was under the impression that almost everything we buy and have been for certainly the last 10 to 20 years has been manufactured with lead-free solder anyway  We're more about keeping stuff that was quite possibly made with leaded stuff, out of landfill by restoring it and bringing it back to use again.   

[Specmaster]

I have some of those probes as well that I got of an Ebay seller who seems to deal with probes in the main. They look and work like the genuine article IMO, I have gotten other probes that came with scopes and by comparison for build quality and feel, are far better then those, if I ever need more I'll happy to get them from the same seller. [emoji106]

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

I'm looking for some probes.  Who was the seller you got yours from?

Here you go, they still have a few left, not sure if they ship to the USA though.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2pcs-P6100-High-Precision-1X-10X-100MHz-Oscilloscope-Probe-Alligator-Clip-F5H2/113732824864?

[bd139]

This is all well and good apart one thing, I was under the impression that almost everything we buy and have been for certainly the last 10 to 20 years has been manufactured with lead-free solder anyway  We're more about keeping stuff that was quite possibly made with leaded stuff, out of landfill by restoring it and bringing it back to use again.   

That's true. It'll all end up in landfill again one day though if we like it or not

I'm building my K2 with leaded solder as well. Says don't use lead free in the instructions

Talking of soldering, just learned a lesson. FQP13N10 gets very not happy very quickly and makes a very loud noise if you attempt to accidentally use it in the linear region with a 6.25 ohm collector load on a 200W 28V Meanwell supply. Scared the crap out of me. This event happened because of a crappy solder joint in the bias network which caused it to saturate instantly 

On a positive note, once I corrected this fuck up and stopped shaking, 90W out which was enough for some wisps of smoke to come out of my dummy load



Edit: experiments with cheap switching MOSFETs cost 75p for a failure rather than £30-50 a failure for proper LDMOS RF transistors hence why I don't mind blowing stuff up.