Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

Those images look great. I checked out some videos, too. Very clear, unlike the scopes from just a few years earlier. The ADSM302 is this year's model with twice the working distance (up to 22cm), but the 301 seems just fine (up to 12 cm), considering the lower cost, the same resolution, and the same frame rate.

Help me! It looks like I'm getting one, now. Order submitted.

I can't help you now it's too late. 

Yeah, I had that reply open as I was perusing. So, you can read that "help" line as the three steps of my shopping log.

The base is solid aluminum but it's not great for laying a board on because it's too slippery-slidey. Just need to put on a material to help a board stay put. Looking at some options like a piece of ESD mat.

Yep, ESD mat, mouse pad, jar opener

I did some soldering with it yesterday and was very pleased with how it went.

Took another pic for you at full magnification.

That looks perfect for hunting down subtly fractured solder joints.

[factory]

Sorry Pat, as I couldn't find much of interest in the UK I was searching on ePay.com for digital counters & voltmeters and that is how I found the Dana, I'm looking forward to the teardown too.

I did end up buying this reversible counter though.   

(Attachment Link)

David

Whoops!! I'm afraid I wound up costing you about $25, then - I took a crack at that one, too, as I'd never seen that model listed before.  That's the danger of a bunch of us having similar interests.  Sorry!  I'd been watching it for months (he previously had it listed at $199 for a loooooong time).  I'd like to see the inside of it when it gets to you, and it's nice to know it will be going to a good home.

-Pat

It's OK an extra $25 is very little compared with the international shipping & import fees, it looked unusual enough & as I didn't have a HP reversible counter in my collection I decided to bid for it, it also seems to be the third HP item I have that I can't find in any of the catalogues.

Anyway I collected the HP K20-5280A counter from the local ParcelFarce depot & paid my fees last Friday, the seller did an excellent job of packing it in a large box with plenty of foam chips & bubble wrap all round , if only others would do the same.

Neat. Added to POI.

I've seen some other HP gear that had that model naming convention (i.e., the hyphenated prefix). Anyone know what the story is on it? Was it a format used by a company that HP acquired?

I haven't a clue, it gets very confusing with some of the model number prefixes, for example;

K02-738BR package of TE sold together (200SR, 738BR & 739AR in cabinet).
But then there is a later version E02-738BR with 652A & 738BR. 

Some options are given as a prefix, e.g. H20-1405A which is a double height XY version of the standard 1405A scope amplifier plug-in.
There are similar prefixes for line frequency options, MIL spec line filters, etc....

And then there is the stuff that isn't in the catalog like the K20-5280A  and in-house only kit such as the K79-0981C diode test set, in-house prefixes seemed to change to ET-xxxx later on too.

I think we need someone with inside knowledge to answer this properly.

David

[bd139]

Busy day today. Absolutely bugger all TE related though. Decided to make amends. Did some research and may join the BVWS here in the UK. They seem to do auctions populated by cheap bastards who don’t want to pay anything for stuff  ... lots of TE appears in it.

[Specmaster]

Are you sure about that, their website has not been updated in the last 4 years apart from the announcement of their next event, an a swap meet on the 4th August 

[bd139]

Yeah 100%. They posted auction catalogues and results as well. Lots of interesting stuff.

There’s an auction in Harpenden which isn’t terrible for me to get to as well. And you can join there after you’ve had a look at the auction catalogue!

[Specmaster]

Quick update on the Hacker amp, nope, the distortion is still there and had to call a halt on it for the evening as the tone from the speaker is driving everyone nuts in the house, even on low volume   

[Specmaster]

Yeah 100%. They posted auction catalogues and results as well. Lots of interesting stuff.

There’s an auction in Harpenden which isn’t terrible for me to get to as well. And you can join there after you’ve had a look at the auction catalogue!

I'll have to have another look at that then 

I must have missed that then, membership is £32 for year.

[BU508A]

Busy day today. Absolutely bugger all TE related though. Decided to make amends. Did some research and may join the BVWS here in the UK. They seem to do auctions populated by cheap bastards who don’t want to pay anything for stuff  ... lots of TE appears in it.

Hmmmm, lots of grey-haired folks there (if they did not loss their hair), sure, you wanna join them bd? 

[bd139]

I'll have to have another look at that then 

I must have missed that then, membership is £32 for year.

Yep - you have to be a member to bid in an auction but you don't have to pay to go and have a look however.

Hmmmm, lots of grey-haired folks there (if they did not loss their hair), sure, you wanna join them bd? 

*looks in mirror* ... I'll fit right in! 

[bd139]

Some final prices:

Tek 475 - £10
Farnell LT30-2 - £20
HP 6516A 3KV supply - £32
Marconi VTVM - £10
Telequipment D54- £5
Heathkit DX-100U - £120 (worth it!)
Tek 2236 - £80


Test gear appears to go for SFA as it's not the primary interest of participants.

[BU508A]

Oh, they had in July this nice Grundig Satellite short wave receiver. Very nice these, wanted always one.
Do you know how much this one has been sold?

[bd139]

https://www.bvws.org.uk/auctions/results.php/2019-07-07-royal-wootton-bassett

went for £60

Edit: whoa they had a Tek 549 go for £60 as well in working condition.

[med6753]

Busy day today. Absolutely bugger all TE related though. Decided to make amends. Did some research and may join the BVWS here in the UK. They seem to do auctions populated by cheap bastards who don’t want to pay anything for stuff  ... lots of TE appears in it.

Hmmmm, lots of grey-haired folks there (if they did not loss their hair), sure, you wanna join them bd? 

Damn, wish they had something like that here. 

Grey hair? I'd also fit right it. 

[mnementh]

...I can't help you now it's too late. 

The base is solid aluminum but it's not great for laying a board on because it's too slippery-slidey. Just need to put on a material to help a board stay put. Looking at some options like a piece of ESD mat.

Look for small silicone bench mats, the kind used for cellphone repair. They'll have little wells for small components, or you can just flip them upside down.

mnem
*back out into hell*

[BU508A]

Since here are some folks which are interested in valves, tubes, vacuum tubes or electron tubes, perhaps this may be of some interest.

There is a guy in Germany, Helmut Weigl, he developed a digitally tube tester, the so-called RoeTest.
If you are looking for a nice project, this could be one for a tube enthusiast.
I have no affiliation to him besides I'm finding this a very interesting project.
I have considered to build one by myself.

This is his website:
http://www.roehrentest.de/EnglishInfo.html

Here are some pictures of people, which have build one:

Overview list: http://www.roehrentest.de/AndereRoetests.html

Example from Stephan Kissling (http://www.roehrentest.de/NB%20Kissling%20Stephan.html):



Example from Kralj Marko for a 19" case (http://www.roehrentest.de/NB%20Kralj%20Marko.html):



This is a very impressive one, made from massive Aluminium with! water cooling by Spence Barton (http://www.roehrentest.de/NB%20Spence%20Barton.html):




Really, we are not the only crazy TEA folks here on earth.   

[bd139]

Damn that's a beast. Last tube tester I used was in the local radio shop in about 1985 and it was one of those plug in go/no go ones and it was already 10 years obsolete. The guy who ran it was surprised that anyone wanted to use it and had to untangle the plug 

[factory]

Busy day today. Absolutely bugger all TE related though. Decided to make amends. Did some research and may join the BVWS here in the UK. They seem to do auctions populated by cheap bastards who don’t want to pay anything for stuff  ... lots of TE appears in it.

Be aware there are people already doing exactly that, I'm sure I have something here with a Harpenden lot # sticker still attached that came off ePay.
Plus I've looked through the website catalogue pictures in the past too and then seen something that looks very familiar on ePay, the lazy seller just tried to cover up the stickers using a marker pen & added a few zeros to the price, it appeared week after week because of the silly price. 

David

[Specmaster]

I'll have to have another look at that then 

I must have missed that then, membership is £32 for year.

Yep - you have to be a member to bid in an auction but you don't have to pay to go and have a look however.

Hmmmm, lots of grey-haired folks there (if they did not loss their hair), sure, you wanna join them bd? 

*looks in mirror* ... I'll fit right in! 

That makes 2 of us then 

[Specmaster]

Some final prices:

Tek 475 - £10
Farnell LT30-2 - £20
HP 6516A 3KV supply - £32
Marconi VTVM - £10
Telequipment D54- £5
Heathkit DX-100U - £120 (worth it!)
Tek 2236 - £80


Test gear appears to go for SFA as it's not the primary interest of participants.

Yep, you're right again, some of those prices are good but don't forget you have to factor in the membership and fuel / parking but grab enough bits and it should be worth it 

Somebody does need to keep their site a bit more relevant though. I found the upcoming events and the completed listing but there is also another tab / link that takes you straight to a upcoming event on 6th August, now where did I park my time machine 

[bd139]

Busy day today. Absolutely bugger all TE related though. Decided to make amends. Did some research and may join the BVWS here in the UK. They seem to do auctions populated by cheap bastards who don’t want to pay anything for stuff  ... lots of TE appears in it.

Be aware there are people already doing exactly that, I'm sure I have something here with a Harpenden lot # sticker still attached that came off ePay.
Plus I've looked through the website catalogue pictures in the past too and then seen something that looks very familiar on ePay, the lazy seller just tried to cover up the stickers using a marker pen & added a few zeros to the price, it appeared week after week because of the silly price. 

David

Yeah that doesn’t surprise me. I’d probably value add i.e. fix and test it before shifting. Got an eBay reputation to keep 

Yep, you're right again, some of those prices are good but don't forget you have to factor in the membership and fuel / parking but grab enough bits and it should be worth it 

Indeed. It’s a gamble but what isn’t. 

[Specmaster]

Oh, they had in July this nice Grundig Satellite short wave receiver. Very nice these, wanted always one.
Do you know how much this one has been sold?

Watching the video it seems that the real old radios go for a small fortune by comparison.

[factory]

Busy day today. Absolutely bugger all TE related though. Decided to make amends. Did some research and may join the BVWS here in the UK. They seem to do auctions populated by cheap bastards who don’t want to pay anything for stuff  ... lots of TE appears in it.

Be aware there are people already doing exactly that, I'm sure I have something here with a Harpenden lot # sticker still attached that came off ePay.
Plus I've looked through the website catalogue pictures in the past too and then seen something that looks very familiar on ePay, the lazy seller just tried to cover up the stickers using a marker pen & added a few zeros to the price, it appeared week after week because of the silly price. 

David

Yeah that doesn’t surprise me. I’d probably value add i.e. fix and test it before shifting. Got an eBay reputation to keep 

 

It also surprises me that people list TE for £hundreds on ePay and can't even be bothered to give it a quick clean. 

David

P.S. I finally decided I needed an a working digital capacitor meter that will measure more than 20uF, so I put in a £40 offer on a Peak ESR70 last night and it got accepted. 

[Specmaster]

Busy day today. Absolutely bugger all TE related though. Decided to make amends. Did some research and may join the BVWS here in the UK. They seem to do auctions populated by cheap bastards who don’t want to pay anything for stuff  ... lots of TE appears in it.

Be aware there are people already doing exactly that, I'm sure I have something here with a Harpenden lot # sticker still attached that came off ePay.
Plus I've looked through the website catalogue pictures in the past too and then seen something that looks very familiar on ePay, the lazy seller just tried to cover up the stickers using a marker pen & added a few zeros to the price, it appeared week after week because of the silly price. 

David

Yeah that doesn’t surprise me. I’d probably value add i.e. fix and test it before shifting. Got an eBay reputation to keep 

 

It also surprises me that people list TE for £hundreds on ePay and can't even be bothered to give it a quick clean. 

David

P.S. I finally decided I needed an a working digital capacitor meter that will measure more than 20uF, so I put in a £40 offer on a Peak ESR70 last night and it got accepted. 

That's a really good deal, RS selling that one for £118.64, well done.  Plus it goes all the way to 22000uF, but be sure to discharge the caps each time as I've heard they do not like charged caps and can get zapped with ease.

[tautech]

Peak Atlas have a discount thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/special-offer-to-eevblog-forum-members/

[nixiefreqq]

   So how's it work... count up to the preset on the left, then start counting backwards again? Will it start from zero again and continue forever? Or does it display on offset of the two inputs?

mnem

don't have a manual for it (almost think that one ever existed).

but the "reversible" bit appears to just be related to the difference of the A and B input.

to test this theory i pumped 10Khz into A and 2500Hz into B in "timed" mode.  set for A+B it displayed 12500.  set for A-B it displayed 7500.

then i pumped 1004Hz into A and 1000Hz into B with the gate "open" and set for A-B mode.  after about 10 seconds the display read 40.  cranked the B input up to 1010Hz and watched the count fall to 0 and then go negative.  back to 1000 Hz on B and the count went up to 0 and then positive.

guess it would be useful for watching to see two signals drift with respect to each other.

the thumbwheels on the left do not appear to act on the count at all.  (and the label does not say preset counter) 

the thumbwheels do set the gate time from 1uSec to 1 Sec with 1uSec resolution in timed mode.