Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[worsthorse]

I have one 8640B now and I love it. It's in nearly perfect condition. 

That is in good shape. And you are making me pine for a vector voltmeter once again. 

All of mine work though all are in various stages of beat up. My plan is to assemble one all-knobs-good out of the four, keep one for spares and sell the others. I also have a Fluke 6061, which is on my bench for everyday use.

You got a pretty good deal on the 8405A accessory set, too, if I remember. That's a nice setup.

[0culus]

That is in good shape. And you are making me pine for a vector voltmeter once again. 


All of mine work though all are in various stages of beat up. My plan is to assemble one all-knobs-good out of the four, keep one for spares and sell the others. I also have a Fluke 6061, which is on my bench for everyday use.

I gotta say, I bought the vector voltmeter with the expectation of using it as a stopgap while I save up for a VNA, but it's a really neat instrument in it's own right. I think there is a lot to be learned by using it.

As for the 40B, I am pretty sure I got insanely lucky to find one that has been extremely well cared for. Everything is solid on it. 

You got a pretty good deal on the 8405A accessory set, too, if I remember. That's a nice setup.

Yeah, and it's in basically new condition too. And I got the probe accessory set with the instrument, which is scarcer than hen's teeth. Unfortunately it's missing one of the 10:1 dividers and a couple of other things.

[mnementh]

   As you like it... 

mnem
*Lit AF*

Show off! 

If you insist... 

Just need to find some shelf space for it now  Rolled a simple 3DP light box to play with clear etched panels so I cut the duff 419A panel to drop on the test one. The box will take a 100mm strip of tape just need to tweak the internal box for the wider WS2812 tape. Tested the Grey with edge light - FAIL as expected

I have more than a little experience with this kind of lighting...

First, WS2812s aren't the greatest choice. They're typically a 5050 package, and have a pretty narrow dispersal angle. 2835 RGB have higher luminance and broader dispersal angle. Secondly, WS2812s (or any addressable LED) are noisy AF!!! RGB is nice in that you can control it 100% by resistance or linear regulation. I realize this is a toy, but when you suggested putting them on the side of that meter I just cringed.

2nd... as thick as that plastic is, you SHOULD be able to get it to edge light. The hard thing to do is to get the emitters themselves aligned with the edge. And finally, the edge those emitters face needs to be polished. Your laser-cut edge is probably not transmissive enough.

mnem
*toddling off to ded*

[beanflying]

Edge alignment is easy nothing manual about the build to misalign it.

The initial one I made was only able to take standard width 5050's (7.5mm) the floor will now take 10mm wide strips whatever the choice of LED is.

I have a flowmeter/valve coming which will reduce the striations even more with less nozzle airflow (thin is worse) but already the edges are fairly well flame polished by the laser. A quick wet and dry with 800 or 1200 might help but it is a suck it and see at this stage.

The shot with the text is edge on 4-6mm deep x 4.5mm cut one is 2 cut surfaces the other is two stacked 10mm deep (4 surfaces). The other is just some random range of speeds and powers edge on from the last few days playing side lit to show up the striations.

Plaything/Testbed initially then put it out there as a $ job maybe? Kids bedrooms, trophies etc?

[bitseeker]

Excellent work bd! So many parts, but all nicely placed, properly oriented, standing straight (on the top side at least), etc.

The bottom kills my OCD. You have to bend a lot of the caps over as there's only 6mm clearance between that and the bottom of the case. It does however warn you of this and there's a check step to make sure nothing is wrong.

Yeah, I figured it was something like that. After seeing the care you put into the top side, there's no way you'd do that to the bottom side unless you had no choice.

[bitseeker]

Excellent work bd! So many parts, but all nicely placed, properly oriented, standing straight (on the top side at least), etc.

The big question is what you consider proper oriented and whether bd139 agrees.

There are a couple of wonky blue film caps on the top which don't bother me too much. If you look closely you will see all the resistors have the tolerance band on the top or right end depending on orientation though

Yep! Since you provided the resolution, I took full advantage of it.

[bitseeker]

Yesterday I received my new rectal thermometer.

   Here it is in comparison to my own contraption. I know they're almost indistinguishable, but let me tell you: real experts can tell them apart! 

I think I got kinda lucky here. Previously, I've only seen HV probes of unknown provenience for prices above 80 €. Now I got a real Fluke for less than half of that, with shipping. I think that actually was a fluke.

Welcome to Probulator Club!

OK, I guess I'll join in. Another Fluke probulator. Actually, I didn't realize how many different probulators I had in the shot.

BTW, mnem, the P2200 probes are there in their packaging, awaiting the bg7tbl noise generator so I can test their spectrum.

[bitseeker]

As you like it... 

Primary Red? Does it have a Secondary Red, too?

[med6753]

The parts for the Heath OL-1 are still on weather delay so with the Memorial Day weekend the earliest I'll get it is Tuesday. So I decided to take a look at the Heath V-7A VTVM. I shouldn't have bothered. The jewel assembly on the meter movement somehow got damaged. There's no evidence of physical damage to the case or the meter face so it's a mystery. Perhaps overload and banging it against the stops did it but typically these movements are pretty robust and resistant to that sort of damage. But not this one. It's done. So this VTVM is basically junk. But I'll keep it in case another one comes along that has other issues. I took a peek inside and it's in good shape and there's no ohms battery installed and no evidence of past battery leakage.   

[bd139]

May be crud in it. I had one that had metal shavings in it that wouldn’t deflect.  Common problem apparently and very difficult to fix. Keep the meter cover though - most valuable bit of the whole meter!

[med6753]

May be crud in it. I had one that had metal shavings in it that wouldn’t deflect.  Common problem apparently and very difficult to fix. Keep the meter cover though - most valuable bit of the whole meter!

No evidence of any foreign matter but it does appear that the jewel bearing is shot. Yea, going to keep the entire unit.

[med6753]

I R confused about something. So it seems that Ms. May is resigning. And her party will appoint a new PM. That's what I don't understand. I thought when ever a PM resigns that sparks a general election by the people to elect a new PM. How come not in this case? 

[bd139]

Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 killed that off. Now it's a personality cult.  Honestly though May was the good one here. She was hanging on as long as possible to try and burn the bridges meaning the only choice on the table was revoking article 50. She has now been manipulated out of the way leaving some disreputable turds. Watch what happens. The whole shebang is about to get even worse. If you look at who's left they are pretty much in Aaron Banks' and Steve Bannon's pockets. Go research those pieces of shit on legs and you will see the chain of events. It's trump, russians, right wing PR fronts and analytics companies all the way down. This is a global thing - we're not the only victims. US, most of Europe, UK, even bits of Africa and Asia are wrapped up in this one.

All you can do is sit back and watch it all turn to shit, or buy some milkshakes and splash the fash: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/22/nigel-farage-shelters-on-campaign-bus-to-avoid-milkshake-attack 

Edit: the playbook for reference is pretty obvious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics (look under UK)

[Specmaster]

There's a slim chance that we managed to get enough remain MEPs elected yesterday to maybe signal that we have  had enough of this Brexit shit that those two have brought upon us.

[med6753]

So there's a slim chance that you guys might stay with the EU after all?

We have our version of looney tunes here and apparently you have yours. Why should we have all the fun? 

 P.S.....I don't watch or read the national news anymore. It's a total cluster. Drain the swamp in DC? More like nuke it and start over.   

[bd139]

Yes the intention was never to leave the EU originally. Cameron basically threw the fascists a bone hoping that they'd lose in an election but underestimated the power of the marketoids and press running the show and how utterly fucking retarded half of the country is. That was a pro-EU power grab which backfired. Then after much shit shuffling they were left with May who was basically the last of the Conservatives that wasn't in someone else's pocket. She was going to keep proposing shitty deals and the EU would decline them forcing remain vs no deal. No deal is untenable. Now she's ousted, it leaves bought out hard liners in charge of the show. The current "favourite" is undergoing private prosecution at the moment for lying about the election. Labour, the main alternative is run by a crazy Marxist who is pro-Brexit as well. Thus it's mental.

It's the same loony tunes you have that we have. This is a coordinated attack rather than a coincidence. It's all deeply connected.

Yes nuke it.

[Mr. Scram]

I think I won Ikea. I went there to buy one thing, and went home having bought exactly that one thing.

[bd139]

So was it an orchid or a salad spinner? 

[GreyWoolfe]

Yesterday I received my new rectal thermometer.

   Here it is in comparison to my own contraption. I know they're almost indistinguishable, but let me tell you: real experts can tell them apart! 

I think I got kinda lucky here. Previously, I've only seen HV probes of unknown provenience for prices above 80 €. Now I got a real Fluke for less than half of that, with shipping. I think that actually was a fluke.

Welcome to Probulator Club!

OK, I guess I'll join in. Another Fluke probulator. Actually, I didn't realize how many different probulators I had in the shot.

BTW, mnem, the P2200 probes are there in their packaging, awaiting the bg7tbl noise generator so I can test their spectrum.

Can I join the probulator club?

[beanflying]

Just because  0.6W from the bum from 6x 5050 LED's. 10% powered engrave is the winner and I should have cleaned them prior to pics 

Just auto settings on the phone so plenty of light.

[Mr. Scram]

So was it an orchid or a salad spinner? 

[VK5RC]

A dirty 'pron' magazine from the 70s, includes lovely figures as well!
A give away from one of the guys at my ham club tonight. Thanks... atq!
Note to Pat - includes dot - LED data.
Rob

[med6753]

Since the Heath scope project is on hold due to lack of parts might as well catch up on some non-TEA activities.

New driving lights installed on the CR-V. I had a set of H3 Halogen driving lights but the seal on one of them let go and allowed moisture to get in and burn out the bulb. I attempted to fix it but accidentally dropped the glass lens shattering it. So it gave me the excuse to get new and upgrade to LED. We'll see how they perform in the dark.

And yes, I aimed them properly as to not blind on coming drivers.

   

[bitseeker]

Just because  0.6W from the bum from 6x 5050 LED's. 10% powered engrave is the winner and I should have cleaned them prior to pics 

Just auto settings on the phone so plenty of light.

Very cool! Looks just as I had imagined.

[mnementh]

Edge alignment is easy nothing manual about the build to misalign it.

The initial one I made was only able to take standard width 5050's (7.5mm) the floor will now take 10mm wide strips whatever the choice of LED is.

I have a flowmeter/valve coming which will reduce the striations even more with less nozzle airflow (thin is worse) but already the edges are fairly well flame polished by the laser. A quick wet and dry with 800 or 1200 might help but it is a suck it and see at this stage.

   The shot with the text is edge on 4-6mm deep x 4.5mm cut one is 2 cut surfaces the other is two stacked 10mm deep (4 surfaces). The other is just some random range of speeds and powers edge on from the last few days playing side lit to show up the striations.

Plaything/Testbed initially then put it out there as a $ job maybe? Kids bedrooms, trophies etc?

   

That edge is more than serviceable as-is. I was expecting the edge to me more bubbly, like the graphic object itself. I've cut my own with a saw/sanded 1200 grit/buffed with bare wool wheel on Dremel that didn't look much better.

What I'm talking about with alignment is the fact that the elements themselves are not centered in the window, but typically form a 1-1.5mm circle which can be even more offset to allow placement of the IC die in the case of addressable LEDs. With a 2mm thick piece of plastic (I'm guessing based on the pics you've shown) , as little as 0.2-0.5mm can be the difference from "barely" to "sweet spot" with the light-piping effect.

Alternately, you may find you need to actually burn away some of the material to get some "depth of cut" to make it refract the light visibly. Curious; I wonder how the folks who do the prismatic cubes made by laser-forming bubbles inside glass and acrylic set up their rigs; clearly focal point of the LASER is critical. 

As for selling curiosities made this way, you're going to be up against stiff competition with narrow profit margin. These things in every subject matter imaginable are coming from China by the boatload for $10-15 SHIPPED, and are being directly marketed as kids bedroom decor & nightlights. You'll have to play up the custom projects angle.

For moderately-sized projects you can buy the bases cheaper than you can make them, even if you ignore your time; like $5-10 each WITH REMOTE depending on size: https://www.dhgate.com/wholesale/acrylic+light+base.html

For larger projects, you can probably do better with cheap 5050 RGB strip like the lightbar I made for my Taranis below; you can buy them from AliEx or DHGate for a few dollars WITH IR or RF remote. Just add 12V power: https://www.dhgate.com/wholesale/search.do?act=search&sus=&searchkey=5050+rgb&catalog=#hpsearch1806 They also make it with addressable LEDs, but those tend to be more expensive.

It appears that most of these are intended for 4mm acrylic project material; that will definitely get around MOST of the "critical alignment" issues I'm talking about that you'll see with 2mm material. They also appear to use regular 5050 LEDs in most of them. I think the solution is to move to a 4mm material for your projects. Obviously it can be done pretty easily; oodles of folks already doing it for fun & profit.     https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2869


https://youtu.be/HaYUlg4ouMs   

https://youtu.be/g0oSgxMlE0c

Cheers,

mnem