Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[nixiefreqq]

[Martin.M]

the little counter movie 

http://www.wellenkino.de/makerfaire/2019/FER-HD.mp4   (HD, 32MB)


http://www.wellenkino.de/makerfaire/2019/FER.mp4   (lo D, 9MB)

nobody talks about the instrument what is sitting on the HP counter...
This is a nixies device:

Before the guests can play with the old instruments there we want to play with them,
and for this job we need that instrument. It is a 5 digit Nixie radiation detector, readout in µSievert 
The probe is made by Thomson in france, a large black beta/gamma sensitive Geiger-Mueller-tube, high sensitive. Typical used in weather stations.
This tube are connected to around 500 Volt in series with a high M resistor, delivering the typical tick..tick...tick what will be counted.
The highest range of the instrument you will not read bec you lost your Hair, teaths, and your eyes are glowing in the dark 

[AVGresponding]

Been a week now and no update on delivery of the PM3218, starting to wonder if I'll need to file a claim 

This looks interesting, but I do wonder why it isn't shown powered up 


Bought a cheap desoldering iron from Farnell, around £7. Wasn't expecting much, but it's actually really good!

It's basically a plunger type desolder pump with a heated tip. It's a bit of a faff to empty, but for the money it's a real winner.

I am one of the people gambling on the cheap meter Dave found on Aliexpress. Since I've never used them before, anyone has any pointers on likely delivery times to the UK?

[xrunner]

Just upgraded the NanoVNA to the latest firmware - all went smoothly. A couple more pics of the 40 meter dipole antenna, return loss and vswr. All agree with higher priced instruments.

Return loss = -27.5 dB
VSWR = 1.10

My resonant point is a bit low at 6.93 MHz but that is correct. I want to operate mostly digital at 7.074 MHz, however I could trim it a bit to move the dip a little higher.

Still impressed for a $50 gadget, will try more experiments soon. 

[EV]

My fist calculator was like this:
https://dopecc.net/calculators/ime/ime86s/

It had 16 nixie digits, 4 memory places and square root. 

It was my first electronic calculator. This was first electric calculator.

[bd139]

On to the next fad, after RPN that is. I now own a 3d printer  . Managed to snag a cheap Creality Ender 3 from their official eBay drop shipping outfit. Got 10% off due to ebay promo as well. The things are selling second hand for that so worst case it's a zero sum game 

[xrunner]

On to the next fad, after RPN that is. I now own a 3d printer  . Managed to snag a cheap Creality Ender 3 from their official eBay drop shipping outfit. Got 10% off due to ebay promo as well. The things are selling second hand for that so worst case it's a zero sum game 

Welcome to 3D printing. 

Welcome to making your own parts. 

Welcome to a few haedaches too. 

Seriously, if I can give any help/advice let me know. Once you learn it i may be asking you for help too. 

[nfmax]

On to the next fad, after RPN that is. I now own a 3d printer  . Managed to snag a cheap Creality Ender 3 from their official eBay drop shipping outfit. Got 10% off due to ebay promo as well. The things are selling second hand for that so worst case it's a zero sum game 

Welcome to your new rabbit hole! I picked FreeCad to start with, as it's erm, well, free and runs OK on my Mac (except when it crashes - FINR, I'm told). It's mostly harmless, but difficult to understand at first.

[tggzzz]

On to the next fad, after RPN that is. I now own a 3d printer  . Managed to snag a cheap Creality Ender 3 from their official eBay drop shipping outfit. Got 10% off due to ebay promo as well. The things are selling second hand for that so worst case it's a zero sum game 

Welcome to your new rabbit hole! I picked FreeCad to start with, as it's erm, well, free and runs OK on my Mac (except when it crashes - FINR, I'm told). It's mostly harmless, but difficult to understand at first.

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

[beanflying]

On to the next fad, after RPN that is. I now own a 3d printer  . Managed to snag a cheap Creality Ender 3 from their official eBay drop shipping outfit. Got 10% off due to ebay promo as well. The things are selling second hand for that so worst case it's a zero sum game 

  Hope we were 'helpful' in guiding you .....

Did you get the PRO with the glass bed or the magnetic one? If magnetic just go a little careful as it is fairly soft on the surface.

[beanflying]

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

  You have uttered this crap once to often and it just doesn't hold up with decent quality modern printers!

[mnementh]

Nice collection there  . Plenty of HP goodies 

   OK so it's not all HP - some of it is Agilent or Keysight...

"EEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!"   *runs away and hides from all the NEATNESS...

*judder.... judder... judder... in the corner*

Posing RPN twaddle is starting to look like the next Planking fad ....... Stop it before you go blind 

Okay; I'll just agitate until I need glasses...

Smaller planks is all... some that slide, and some with buttons... and the occasional random [)] & [(] buttons just to fuck with med's head. 

   All things should be = and in balance. Enter is not a logical operator 

Being LAZY is using commercial wraps in tonight's dinner instead of making my own dough for the Souvlaki's . BURP     Healthy 'junk food'

Those look fresh-made though... HEY...!!! You just reminded me of ONE THING I WILL MISS when I leave Tejas... It is a "thing" here; ALL the big grocery stores make FRESH tortillas EVERY MORNING, and a few of the local shops in the morning and late afternoon. Smell of still-sizzling tortillas filling the whole car on the way home while wifey is cooking scrambled eggs & bacon to go in 'em. It's one of those "joys of marriage".  *SIGH*

mnem
I'm done agitating now. 

[bd139]

On to the next fad, after RPN that is. I now own a 3d printer  . Managed to snag a cheap Creality Ender 3 from their official eBay drop shipping outfit. Got 10% off due to ebay promo as well. The things are selling second hand for that so worst case it's a zero sum game 

Welcome to 3D printing. 

Welcome to making your own parts. 

Welcome to a few haedaches too. 

Seriously, if I can give any help/advice let me know. Once you learn it i may be asking you for help too. 

Thanks for the offer of assistance. I'm going to need it 

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

...

It does indeed involve a lot of fettling but the trade-off here is that I need to get an injection moulding done commercially and the basic tooling cost is nearly £4500 from our dear friends in China (they are really cool actually - sent me samples etc). I would like to be able to run iterations of FDM prototypes first before I commit to an actual enclosure design and pay for the tooling. I fully intend to get someone else to pay for the tooling via kickstarter i.e. bring the product to production ready maturity out of my own pocket (rather than sell a lie) then solicit capital to go into production. Cheap FDM gets me there with minimal cost even if it does cost time. I could pay for someone to print it but turnaround is a week for anything of reasonable cost and aggregate cost is 2x as much over time. Time is cheap for me most of the time.

Thanks for the tip on OpenSCAD. I will look into that.

On to the next fad, after RPN that is. I now own a 3d printer  . Managed to snag a cheap Creality Ender 3 from their official eBay drop shipping outfit. Got 10% off due to ebay promo as well. The things are selling second hand for that so worst case it's a zero sum game 

  Hope we were 'helpful' in guiding you .....

Did you get the PRO with the glass bed or the magnetic one? If magnetic just go a little careful as it is fairly soft on the surface.

I got the basic one. I compared the pro and basic one and didn't find any massive outcome improvement for the money. I may swap the bed out for a glass one after I've experimented with this one. I want to print a couple of things on the basic surface as it gives the desired finish on a face down print I want to do.

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

  You have uttered this crap once to often and it just doesn't hold up with decent quality modern printers!

I agree with tggzzz to a point. But they are much much much improved for the money though which is considerably better than paying for tooling and 3rd party services now. I spend most of the day sitting on my arse at home waiting for compilers so the odd bit of fettling doesn't affect the outcome of the day much and the cost advantage on risking fucking up some tooling for injection mouldings is a good tradeoff

A side effect is I get to print replacement test gear parts

[tggzzz]

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

  You have uttered this crap once to often and it just doesn't hold up with decent quality modern printers!

It is based on observation of the old and new printer at the local hackspace; the latter is a "Original Prusa i3 MK3".

The local "how to" manual lists many ways in which prints can go wrong and twiddles that can and must be made. It appears there is quite a lot of "suck it and see" involved, which I regard as fettling.

There may be fewer issues if only one person ever uses the machine with only one material, but since I use a variety of materials, I'm never going to own a machine. Hence any prints I make personally will have to be on that shared machine.

[mnementh]

the little counter movie 

http://www.wellenkino.de/makerfaire/2019/FER-HD.mp4   (HD, 32MB)


http://www.wellenkino.de/makerfaire/2019/FER.mp4   (lo D, 9MB)

nobody talks about the instrument what is sitting on the HP counter...
This is a nixies device:

Before the guests can play with the old instruments there we want to play with them,
and for this job we need that instrument. It is a 5 digit Nixie radiation detector, readout in µSievert 
The probe is made by Thomson in france, a large black beta/gamma sensitive Geiger-Mueller-tube, high sensitive. Typical used in weather stations.
This tube are connected to around 500 Volt in series with a high M resistor, delivering the typical tick..tick...tick what will be counted.
The highest range of the instrument you will not read bec you lost your Hair, teaths, and your eyes are glowing in the dark 

Wow... a little dark for "before my morning coffee" time, but okay. Think it would register my little pill bottle of watch hands ...? 

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

  You have uttered this crap once too often and it just doesn't hold up with decent quality modern printers!

      1000x this!

If a complete math-defective, CADD-intolerant fuckwit like me can be up & printing usable parts an hour after unboxing... and can make a dimensions-critical box model with complex curves and stepped surfaces with notch cutouts AND add decorative text within a couple hours of installing Fusion 360... then we've DEFINITELY gotten past the point you're talking about. Give it a fucking rest already. 

Welcome to the 3DP insanity, bd!!!

mnem
*back out into the suck*

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

Something in my 7854 has decided to take an occasional dump to ground, and I've only managed to notice because the case shocked me earlier. As far as I can tell, there's no other faults occurring when this happens. It's only a mild shock as one would expect from an otherwise functioning device.  The fault exists regardless of what plugins I've got installed, so it's definitely in the mainframe itself. It does take around 30 minutes of operation before the fault manifests itself, and it's doing so fairly consistently.

I've never had to track down a "mild" fault such as this.  Anyone have any suggestions on how to tackle tracking down the bugger?

The power supply voltages and ripple were good last I checked, but I'll be checking them again at startup and once the fault manifests.

As for tracking down the fault to a particular board, I'm considering using a 7A22 in another mainframe with the negative input probe attached to the ground at the mains input and move the positive input probe around each board's ground test points to narrow the fault down to the board, then continue from there to find the bastard.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Am I reading this right? You're getting a shock off a supposedly grounded chassis? Correct??   

If yes you need to determine why your scope isn't grounded. Is there a problem chassis to ground prong on the power plug? Or do you have bigger problems with the lack of a ground on your mains wiring? You need to figure this out first.

I think, but not sure, that the EMI filter has capacitors in it tied between hot and ground. If you don't have the chassis grounded these caps could cause the chassis to elevate to a fairly high potential, sometimes as high as 80 to 90 volts. The current is real small but you might feel it. And if the caps are going leaky then the current will go up. And also this leakage current could damage other equipment.

Be safe. If you are getting a shock off the chassis of your equipment something is seriously wrong and you need to shut it down and determine ASAP what's going on. 

I agree 100%, somewhere you have lost the ground connection. In what manner are feeling this leakage, is it from the case of the scope or is it via the ground lead on the probe when connecting to the DUT?

If it’s the latter then you have still got a problem with the scope, possibly a bad connection between the BNC socket and scope chassis if so then the problem exists on the DUT.

If it’s not the filter caps going bad in connection poor grounding, then you need several meters connected the various supply rails with a min/max recoding ability to which rail is being dumped to the chassis periodically and go on a hunt to track down the part on that rail. This testing could be applied to both scope and the DUT but only the DUT would only be suspect if the shock is only felt on the probe lead.

It's definitely the scope itself, as it happens only when the scope is not connected to any other devices. When it happens, if I connect it up to a FG, it grounds through the BNC cable and I can no longer get a shock.  To clarify, when I touch it it's not anything more than a very mild tingling.  Before I power it on again, I'm going to be going through and checking the continuity/resistance of the grounding internally on the scope, as I'd like to find the issue without powering it on again.  What's got me thrown off, though, is that the beast's power supply is a SMPS and there's absolutely no other indication of any other faults, no SMPS shut down, no occasional non-starts, nothing. This all leads me to think that the ground is floating 100% of the time.  Also, I don't have a thorough understanding of SMPS, which may be evident here. 

Either way, getting to the bottom of this issue will be the very next thing I do.

[xrunner]

There may be fewer issues if only one person ever uses the machine with only one material, but since I use a variety of materials, I'm never going to own a machine. Hence any prints I make personally will have to be on that shared machine.

This is very true. Case in point - I printed my NanoVNA case at home with my anal-retentively set-up printer and it came out nearly perfect the first time.

My friend did his at the local library (red PLA) and after I sent him pics of mine he lamented how perfect it was. I asked him to send me a pic of how his came out. See for yourself. Unless you have control of the machine and slicing setup you will never be happy with the results.

You can see the results below.

[mnementh]

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

  You have uttered this crap once to often and it just doesn't hold up with decent quality modern printers!

It is based on observation of the old and new printer at the local hackspace; the latter is a "Original Prusa i3 MK3".

The local "how to" manual lists many ways in which prints can go wrong and twiddles that can and must be made. It appears there is quite a lot of "suck it and see" involved, which I regard as fettling.

There may be fewer issues if only one person ever uses the machine with only one material, but since I use a variety of materials, I'm never going to own a machine. Hence any prints I make personally will have to be on that shared machine.

Yeah, in other words you are armchair quarterbacking and have little real-world knowledge of what you're talking about. I love you man, you know your shit about a LOT of stuff.

This is NOT one of them. You're totally looking at all the things that CAN go wrong with FDM, which you clearly DO have a grasp of, and then going totally "sour grapes" mode and using that as a blueprint for NOT getting involved.

Yes, there's a bit of a learning curve; but it's nowhere NEAR as steep as it was even 3 years ago when I started with my first Tevo Tarantula.

I can understand if you're busy with your life and you're just not ready for ANOTHER rabbit-hole... THAT is a fair assessment; like ANY hobby, it IS a bit of a rabbit-hole. But be honest and admit that if it's the case, instead of crapping all over other people's successes with the technology.

Cheers,

mnem
grr.

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

<-------  Is over here casually trying to ignore the 3DP talk while my friend sends me a text that reads:  "Would you be interested in going in half on a 3D printer? I want to make some R/C parts and I know it'd come in handy for you, too."

 

[tggzzz]

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

...

It does indeed involve a lot of fettling but the trade-off here is that I need to get an injection moulding done commercially and the basic tooling cost is nearly £4500 from our dear friends in China (they are really cool actually - sent me samples etc). I would like to be able to run iterations of FDM prototypes first before I commit to an actual enclosure design and pay for the tooling. I fully intend to get someone else to pay for the tooling via kickstarter i.e. bring the product to production ready maturity out of my own pocket (rather than sell a lie) then solicit capital to go into production. Cheap FDM gets me there with minimal cost even if it does cost time. I could pay for someone to print it but turnaround is a week for anything of reasonable cost and aggregate cost is 2x as much over time. Time is cheap for me most of the time.

Just about anything is cheaper than injection moulding, at least initially!

ISTR a directory (somewhere or other) of local 3D print shops. Quite a few of those were simple "amateur" 3D printers hoping to cash in. If such a person could be located, turnaround could be <<1 week.

Thanks for the tip on OpenSCAD. I will look into that.

There are many 3D tools, each suited to a different way of conceiving and specifying a design. Choose whatever suits your problem.

OpenSCAD would be a peverse choice if you wanted to make a head and shoulders bust. I suspect one of the constraint-based tools might be appropriate for an enclosure, especially if you can/must encode any design rule checks before releasing the design to manufacture.

IMNSHO, 3d printers are like solderless breadboards. You spend as much time fettling as printing.

If your mode of thinking is like machining, i.e. adding and removing parameterised component shapes, then OpenSCAD is a good starting point. There are free standalone versions, and browser/web version.

This collet, one threaded, one not, took me a couple of hours to knock together.

  You have uttered this crap once to often and it just doesn't hold up with decent quality modern printers!

I agree with tggzzz to a point. They are much much much improved for the money though which is considerably better than paying for tooling and 3rd party services now. I spend most of the day sitting on my arse at home waiting for compilers so the odd bit of fettling doesn't affect the outcome of the day much and the cost advantage on risking fucking up some tooling for injection mouldings is a good tradeoff

It is a good tradeoff. The remaining issue would be ensuring your design is suitable for injection moulding.

[tggzzz]

There may be fewer issues if only one person ever uses the machine with only one material, but since I use a variety of materials, I'm never going to own a machine. Hence any prints I make personally will have to be on that shared machine.

This is very true. Case in point - I printed my NanoVNA case at home with my anal-retentively set-up printer and it came out nearly perfect the first time.

My friend did his at the local library (red PLA) and after I sent him pics of mine he lamented how perfect it was. I asked him to send me a  pic of how his came out. See for yourself. Unless you have control of the machine and slicing setup you will never be happy with the results.

You can see the results below.

Far too many of the prints I have seen look like that red print

I prefer to pay other people to become 3d printer techicians

The slicing setup is an interesting point; is it part of the design or part of fettling, or both.

[tggzzz]

<-------  Is over here casually trying to ignore the 3DP talk while my friend sends me a text that reads:  "Would you be interested in going in half on a 3D printer? I want to make some R/C parts and I know it'd come in handy for you, too."

 

Let us know which way you are facing when you stop spinning.

Let us know how you ensure that each individual manufactured item has appropriate mechanical properties to ensure it doesn't fall apart sooner than desirable. That's an issue I'm facing with my collet.

[bd139]

Just about anything is cheaper than injection moulding, at least initially!

Yes. £4500 up front then £0.78 per enclosure. So initial cost for 1000 is £5.28/enclosure. I got a quote from Hammond and another Chinese company that had some serious communication difficulties for an off the shelf one in that quantity that was £11.90 an enclosure so it's actually pretty good.

ISTR a directory (somewhere or other) of local 3D print shops. Quite a few of those were simple "amateur" 3D printers hoping to cash in. If such a person could be located, turnaround could be <<1 week.

At the risk of lacking quality control and marketable outcomes which is the problem I have. I feel like if I'm in control I can get repeatable outcomes for a lower cost.

There are many 3D tools, each suited to a different way of conceiving and specifying a design. Choose whatever suits your problem.

OpenSCAD would be a peverse choice if you wanted to make a head and shoulders bust. I suspect one of the constraint-based tools might be appropriate for an enclosure, especially if you can/must encode any design rule checks before releasing the design to manufacture.

I'm really after constraint based modelling if I can get away with it as that has some advantages if you make small design changes (aka cock up fixes). Definitely no good for sculpting, but I'm no artist in that respect

It is a good tradeoff. The remaining issue would be ensuring your design is suitable for injection moulding.

That's part of the service from the Chinese guys I was talking to. If you send them the design files and chuck a working enclosure in the post their guarantee is they'll send an injection moulded ABS part back, unsprued and finished. 50% cash up front, 50% on delivery of first parts. They will send you the tooling if you want to take it away as well. They also do rework.

The bugger has been trying to find someone take a 1000 part order seriously, even if it leads to a 10,000 part order!

[xrunner]

The slicing setup is an interesting point; is it part of the design or part of fettling, or both.

It's the step between the .stl file and the printer. It generates the gcode that tells the machine how to do everything required - all the directional moves, the temps, the speed and velocity it moves at, the initial layer temp, ... all kinds of things. If the settings in the slicing program (I use Cura) aren't the best they can be (you learn what works best and what doesn't) the print can be like that red case and worse. It won't be the fault of the machine at all!

Also until recently I didn't have manual mesh bed leveling enabled until after I flashed the Ender factory firmware with the Marlin firmware (they are where it all comes from). That made a BIG difference in the quality of the first layer, which is of course what it's all built on top of. 

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

<-------  Is over here casually trying to ignore the 3DP talk while my friend sends me a text that reads:  "Would you be interested in going in half on a 3D printer? I want to make some R/C parts and I know it'd come in handy for you, too."

 

Let us know which way you are facing when you stop spinning.

Let us know how you ensure that each individual manufactured item has appropriate mechanical properties to ensure it doesn't fall apart sooner than desirable. That's an issue I'm facing with my collet.

Based on what I read a few years ago, doesn’t that have everything to do with the filament you use and the temperature at which you extrude it at? I don’t remember much about the processes but I do recall a lot of people having to do a lot of experimenting on those parameters to get usable items out.