Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[worsthorse]

Well, I just ordered a Tek 114 from the bay of evil.  Cuz, you know, I don't have enough stuff here.   

-Pat

muahahahahahahahahahaah! 

[bd139]

I remember running SolidWorks on an NT4 machine. Dual pentium 3 800 with 512Mb of RAM and Matrox G500's and it was fine. People were designing aircraft parts with it. No excuse for Fusion 360 being such a piece of shit now, nearly 20 years later on a machine which is considereably faster when I'm modelling something utterly primitive in comparison.

Also I rather like the FreeCAD workflow stuff. Seems to work for me.

Not that I have any experience of those programs but I have got and do indeed use AutoCad in various guises and I can tell you that running such a program on a laptop just sucks, it is painfully slow , stick it on a desktop/full height tower like I've got and it is OK. Laptops are really meant for anything that requires some ommph behind it, one of my laptops is supposed to be a workstation replacement, a HP Elitebook also running a wimpy i7 and it is gutless compared the tower.

Equivalents:

ME10 = Autocad.
SolidDesigner (sorry not SolidWorks) = Fusion 360

This is going back 20+ years on Unix and NT. The stuff went like the clappers and is functionally similar. Anything Autodesk has always been a bloated pig which is one reason they didn't get a look in on the above.

I can't accept that you need a beefy workstation for simple CAD tasks. A 386 was perfectly capable of at least the 2D shit and most of the 3D stuff is done on the GPU. It's not ideal for sure but it should function fine. It's no more difficult than rendering Quake 3 these days if you put the software together correctly.

FreeCAD proves that. It's fast doing the same stuff as Fusion 360! The difference is Fusion 360 is built on layers of shite.

[worsthorse]

Interesting...  all four failed capacitors in the 106 are 100mfd, 30V electrolytics. Two are used as DC blocking caps at the input side of the output buffers, two are bypass caps in the 27VDC section of the power supply.  All seem to be under-specified, voltage-wise.

All of them are easy-ish to replace. None of them seem to have damaged the components around them. Now to see if I have anything in the capacitor bin that will do.

Also noticed that the 106 has all the mods listed in the "marketing reference" manual, so no upgrades to think about there. 

clearly i never did get outside to enjoy that fleeting sun. TE it is.

edit: don't have a good replacement in hand, so off to mouser i went. new caps should be here by thursday. i will set this aside until then and put the 191 on the bench for a looksee. 

[bd139]

Hmm very clean HP 606B turned up in Southampton for not a lot of money. I am rammed busy though so can’t get it for nearly two weeks. 

[mnementh]

I remember running SolidWorks on an NT4 machine. Dual pentium 3 800 with 512Mb of RAM and Matrox G500's and it was fine. People were designing aircraft parts with it. No excuse for Fusion 360 being such a piece of shit now, nearly 20 years later on a machine which is considereably faster when I'm modelling something utterly primitive in comparison.

Also I rather like the FreeCAD workflow stuff. Seems to work for me.

Not that I have any experience of those programs but I have got and do indeed use AutoCad in various guises and I can tell you that running such a program on a laptop just sucks, it is painfully slow , stick it on a desktop/full height tower like I've got and it is OK. Laptops are really meant for anything that requires some ommph behind it, one of my laptops is supposed to be a workstation replacement, a HP Elitebook also running a wimpy i7 and it is gutless compared the tower.

Equivalents:

ME10 = Autocad.
SolidDesigner (sorry not SolidWorks) = Fusion 360

This is going back 20+ years on Unix and NT. The stuff went like the clappers and is functionally similar. Anything Autodesk has always been a bloated pig which is one reason they didn't get a look in on the above.

I can't accept that you need a beefy workstation for simple CAD tasks. A 386 was perfectly capable of at least the 2D shit and most of the 3D stuff is done on the GPU. It's not ideal for sure but it should function fine. It's no more difficult than rendering Quake 3 these days if you put the software together correctly.

FreeCAD proves that. It's fast doing the same stuff as Fusion 360! The difference is Fusion 360 is built on layers of shite.

All of which are VERY un-user-friendly; ME10/CreoWorks isn’t even human-usable its UI is so counterintuitive. 

Jeez man, make up your freaking mind. First you complain about learning curve, then about the terms of service, then you bitch that anything modern won’t run on your potato laptop.

There is no such  3D CAD software that can reasonably fulfill any two of your “requirements”... if there were, it damn sure wouldn’t have anybody giving any support because nobody works for free, ya cheap bastahd! 

mnem
moo...?

[nixiefreqq]

crossed the river and collected the hp8569b this afternoon.

it has some problems with sweep speed settings and attenuation settings.

those 3 little 4 fingered bastards tried to escape when the bottom cover was pulled.

fortunately there is a west coast ham who i need to thank in advance for documenting a procedure for reattaching them.  (sue or maybe susan?....don't remember the exact call either)
 
it also seems to have a problem with what i assume are push and click buttons that act like momentary buttons.  hmmmmmmm.

will pull the front panel tomorrow and the fun begins.

[nixiefreqq]

Hmm very clean HP 606B turned up in Southampton for not a lot of money. I am rammed busy though so can’t get it for nearly two weeks. 

ok neo......how did you get bd's password?

[bd139]

I remember running SolidWorks on an NT4 machine. Dual pentium 3 800 with 512Mb of RAM and Matrox G500's and it was fine. People were designing aircraft parts with it. No excuse for Fusion 360 being such a piece of shit now, nearly 20 years later on a machine which is considereably faster when I'm modelling something utterly primitive in comparison.

Also I rather like the FreeCAD workflow stuff. Seems to work for me.

Not that I have any experience of those programs but I have got and do indeed use AutoCad in various guises and I can tell you that running such a program on a laptop just sucks, it is painfully slow , stick it on a desktop/full height tower like I've got and it is OK. Laptops are really meant for anything that requires some ommph behind it, one of my laptops is supposed to be a workstation replacement, a HP Elitebook also running a wimpy i7 and it is gutless compared the tower.

Equivalents:

ME10 = Autocad.
SolidDesigner (sorry not SolidWorks) = Fusion 360

This is going back 20+ years on Unix and NT. The stuff went like the clappers and is functionally similar. Anything Autodesk has always been a bloated pig which is one reason they didn't get a look in on the above.

I can't accept that you need a beefy workstation for simple CAD tasks. A 386 was perfectly capable of at least the 2D shit and most of the 3D stuff is done on the GPU. It's not ideal for sure but it should function fine. It's no more difficult than rendering Quake 3 these days if you put the software together correctly.

FreeCAD proves that. It's fast doing the same stuff as Fusion 360! The difference is Fusion 360 is built on layers of shite.

All of which are VERY un-user-friendly; ME10/CreoWorks isn’t even human-usable its UI is so counterintuitive. 

Jeez man, make up your freaking mind. First you complain about learning curve, then about the terms of service, then you bitch that anything modern won’t run on your potato laptop.

There is no such  3D CAD software that can reasonably fulfill any two of your “requirements”... if there were, it damn sure wouldn’t have anybody giving any support because nobody works for free, ya cheap bastahd! 

mnem
moo...?

Which bit of there is did you miss?

Everyone’s mind works differently. Everyone’s requirements work differently.

My potato works in trains, hotels and tables in Pret. And without F360 the potato doesn’t try and burn my dick off 

[mnementh]

Might do you some good; put a little excitement in your afternoon!

mnem

[beanflying]

I remember running SolidWorks on an NT4 machine. Dual pentium 3 800 with 512Mb of RAM and Matrox G500's and it was fine. People were designing aircraft parts with it. No excuse for Fusion 360 being such a piece of shit now, nearly 20 years later on a machine which is considereably faster when I'm modelling something utterly primitive in comparison.

Also I rather like the FreeCAD workflow stuff. Seems to work for me.

Not that I have any experience of those programs but I have got and do indeed use AutoCad in various guises and I can tell you that running such a program on a laptop just sucks, it is painfully slow , stick it on a desktop/full height tower like I've got and it is OK. Laptops are really meant for anything that requires some ommph behind it, one of my laptops is supposed to be a workstation replacement, a HP Elitebook also running a wimpy i7 and it is gutless compared the tower.

Equivalents:

ME10 = Autocad.
SolidDesigner (sorry not SolidWorks) = Fusion 360

This is going back 20+ years on Unix and NT. The stuff went like the clappers and is functionally similar. Anything Autodesk has always been a bloated pig which is one reason they didn't get a look in on the above.

I can't accept that you need a beefy workstation for simple CAD tasks. A 386 was perfectly capable of at least the 2D shit and most of the 3D stuff is done on the GPU. It's not ideal for sure but it should function fine. It's no more difficult than rendering Quake 3 these days if you put the software together correctly.

FreeCAD proves that. It's fast doing the same stuff as Fusion 360! The difference is Fusion 360 is built on layers of shite.

And yet they are both circa 500Mb downloads 

Fusion has more features and to drive those more features takes power. Modern CAD software with on screen rendering shadowing etc is not a job for a light weight PC. I put up with is for over a year and had some of the graphical niceties turned off on Fusion as it was still not a good experience. If Freecad works then great but as the effective price for both is FREE I will be sticking with more power and features.

Like it or not the days of single core software are long gone and quad core anything is starting to run out of legs for a lot.

[tautech]

crossed the river and collected the hp8569b this afternoon.

it has some problems with sweep speed settings and attenuation settings.

those 3 little 4 fingered bastards tried to escape when the bottom cover was pulled.

fortunately there is a west coast ham who i need to thank in advance for documenting a procedure for reattaching them.  (sue or maybe susan?....don't remember the exact call either)
 
it also seems to have a problem with what i assume are push and click buttons that act like momentary buttons.  hmmmmmmm.

will pull the front panel tomorrow and the fun begins.

Sue, member AF6LJ
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/hp-8569-spectrum-analyzer-repairs/

[Specmaster]

A decent 3D cad will demand a lot of processing grunt, it all depends on the feature set and the degree of accuracy that your looking for. My AutoCad 2016 also has a 3D capability and when in 3D mode it slows right down.

[beanflying]

  Some dumbass forgot to add a handle to actually open the drawer. Time for a little manual trimming and cutting then refuse the layers afterward.....

edit done and in the brain box for next time to add a handle 

[beanflying]

Actually playing with TEA  and one of several reasons why my 34461A sucks balls including for low voltage DC and why you should buy a shunt or two

Just having a quick test and play with the new shunt collection and for fun ran the 10A one up against the 121GW and 34461A. Those in the know realise that the 34401A and the 34461A are crap at measuring current but for those who don't here is some rough rounded numbers.

Test 6V into about 2.5 plus the meter/cable/resistances PSU 6632B sensed either side of the load/meter/shunt.

6632B showed 6V @ circa 2.38 A
10A Murata shunt 2.338A (23.38mV burden)
121GW 2.214A (0.16V burden)
34461A 3A plugs 1.95A (0.8V burden)
34461A 10A plugs 2.24A (0.16V burden)

Interesting why the 6632B is a touch off but I now have the gear to look at it's calibration.

[0culus]

RIP to my Icom IC-7000. I went through it again tonight (after having not had time to try troubleshooting it), and can find nothing obviously wrong...except it won't power on.

Thinking about looking for a nice dual band mobile radio rather than a "jack of all trades master of none" radio to use as a base station.

[tautech]

My office today.


All Ubiquity 5 GHz gear for a wider community data service and also serving as a midpoint hop to 2 other installations to cover more subscriber connections.

Three 300W PV panels via a solar controller charging four 165AH 12V SLA's in a series parallel configuration for 24V powering a single 6 port DC POE switch that powers everything. No inverters !
https://www.netonix.com/wisp-switch/ws-8-150-dc.html

Panels, cabinet and pole HW.

Woo hoo, it's finally up and running !
All but the big dish has been powered for a week or so and today 2 other remote dishes have been aligned to our mast and new IP's assigned for the ~40k round trip link to be enabled. Just fine tuning of the big dish alignment while checking the Ubiquity console constellation remains now for bestest throughput, that might be tomorrows job.


Then onto getting the next pole ~2km away in the neighbors up and running which looks into a different piece of countryside where dozens more customers await for a half decent data link instead of our existing rat shit copper services. 

[med6753]

Does the electric fence cause any interference or noise issues?

[tautech]

Does the electric fence cause any interference or noise issues?

Wouldn’t think so and data checksums should take care of that. All the mast data cabling is shielded CAT 5E and everything is earth bonded.

[worsthorse]

Spent the evening working on the first of the two 191s. The case is beat up but everything inside looked okay after I cleaned out the spider webs.  I worked through the calibration procedure and it is well within specification now from .75 to 100 MHz. The two regulated voltage supplies didn't need to be adjusted, both being within one percent of spec.

The only tedious part of calibration is tuning seven LC networks. I have to say it is a lot easier to do using a frequency counter instead of following the procedure described in the manual, which involves zero beating the 191 output against a time marker generator. 

The amplitude was constant within a couple of percent across the band, though I think my measurement scheme was a little suspect. I also put it on the spectrum analyzer. The 191 does not, as one would expect, generate a pure sine wave. There are three harmonics down 60, 70, and 80 dB. For a design based on a series of LC tanks, it works pretty damn well.

It is late here, so I will post photos tomorrow after I clean up the case, blow the rest of the dust out of the interior, and let it burn in for a couple of hours.

[Ero-Shan]

Anyone interested in my former HP4261A (fully working, no accessories, with IEEE488)?

You bet!

And I bet I'm already much too late ...

[Ero-Shan]

Well I did something REAL dumb this morning. Grabbed a terminal that had mains voltage (120V) on it. Luckily my finger tips are so callused that there was hardly a twinge and I even had time to say to myself "dumb ass!" before pulling away. 

When I repaired TVs at the customer's houses I didn't care all that much. (Back in the days almost none had the chassis isolated from mains. And we had 230 V.) I'd try a quick wipe with a finger and started work. There wasn't all that much of a danger - shoes, carpets, dry wooden floors - they're very poor conductors. Got bitten only once when I leaned with my back to a radiator on a hot, sweaty day. 

[med6753]

Well I did something REAL dumb this morning. Grabbed a terminal that had mains voltage (120V) on it. Luckily my finger tips are so callused that there was hardly a twinge and I even had time to say to myself "dumb ass!" before pulling away. 

When I repaired TVs at the customer's houses I didn't care all that much. (Back in the days almost none had the chassis isolated from mains. And we had 230 V.) I'd try a quick wipe with a finger and started work. There wasn't all that much of a danger - shoes, carpets, dry wooden floors - they're very poor conductors. Got bitten only once when I leaned with my back to a radiator on a hot, sweaty day. 

I also got my start troubleshooting/repairing neighbors TV's at age 16/17. 2 things I recall from those days. First, even with my limited knowledge/skill in most cases I was successful. Second, with my limited knowledge/skill it's a miracle I didn't kill myself. 

[bd139]

I think a lot of us had a start like that. I tried to build stuff with discarded valve radios and discovered that some of them had live chassis pretty quickly  . Also that transfomers and selenium rectifiers liked to catch fire. My parents bought me a Radio Shack kit after I smoked my nan's kitchen out and banned me from mains stuff

[BU508A]

I think a lot of us had a start like that. I tried to build stuff with discarded valve radios and discovered that some of them had live chassis pretty quickly  . Also that transfomers and selenium rectifiers liked to catch fire. My parents bought me a Radio Shack kit after I smoked my nan's kitchen out and banned me from mains stuff

As a kid, you was very entertaining, wasn't you? 

[bd139]

I was hell. It was that or fireworks