Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[xrunner]

Aha! HP8648 owner! Which version and options? I still did not give up to find the right one, although it seems that it is easier to aquire a R&S SMB that a 8648B/C/D with all options and a VFD.

8648A 100kHz - 1000 MHz, no options, VFD display - a few places are a little weak but not bad at all. Using external reference of course. Very pleased with it overall used to repair radios here.

[mnementh]

Most likely the drum. It has a photoelectric coating which weakens with age, and the "pre-clean" charge which is supposed to remove any residual image static charge from the drum between prints just can't do its job. One thing you can check is the "charge wire"; this may be at the drum or it may be one for each color roller. If it gets crunked up with toner powder it can't do its job right either; this usually manifests as fuzzy or "out of focus" prints but in principle it can affect the cleaning precharge as well.

There are oodles of vids on yoobToob showing diag procedures for pretty much all brands and problems; a quick Goog of "laser printer" with "ghost" and "repeating ghost" should yield lots of valid hits.

That said... the last time I had one of that family of Samsung color lasers in my possession it drove me so batty with one unrelated failure after another that one fateful day I yanked it off the desk, dragged it outside and smashed it with all my might into the concrete driveway; I swear this was not rage, but rather purely in defense of my own sanity. 

Good hunting my friend; I recommend a couple pints before you start to lessen the likelihood of similar "explosive stress reduction events" to those I experienced. Unless you're fecking around in the neighborhood of the HV section (charge wire,etc); you wanna be stone sober and your wits 110% around you when monkeying around in those innards.  Also, be plenty patient to allow HV to bleed off before you stick your penis-fingers in there. 

mnem
*veteran of 1000 Psychic Wars HP service calls*

I think that the cold Canada air has got to your brain and affected you memory section, penis fingers refers to dear old bd139, although I have been known to fuck things up from time to time but is a rare occassion 

I take your point about the charge connections and I'll check then out tomorrow when the HT has bleed away overnight.

"Charge wire" in this case is a piece of thin wire like a "E" guitar string stretched somewhere parallel in close proximity to the drum. It can get fouled with stray airborne toner.

As for "penis fingers"... is there a soul in here who's truly immune...? I think not. 

mnem

[beanflying]

I fed three finger tips into a Mandolin once  Do I qualify 

[mnementh]

Was that a mandolin (musical instrument)    , mandoline (food slicer)    , or a girl named Mandolin/Mandolynn...?   

mnem
"Ouchies, Mister Sqweek!"

[beanflying]

Late one night I decided to Shred on the Mandolin for fun. No it wasn't the stringed/guitar variety.  Wrap hand and fingers tightly in cloth then drive the manual vehicle to Casualty for some superglue treatment and a shot of pethedine for the throbbiness and then drive back home sometime after midnight. The 6am Cafe open was not fun the day after.

[mnementh]

*Cue Flashiebackie music*



* Slicing a bagel for my son's breakfast (Once Upon a Time in the Wild, Wild West of Texas) *

"What the...?" *Spots blood dripping on floor* "Oh, fu-u-u-ck..."

*Puts fingertip back roughly where it belongs & wraps with paper towel, then drops bagel back in the baggie & folds it under the stack of bagels with the other hand* (Hey... fresh cinnamon raisin bagels from local bakery )

"Honey, stop what you're doing & load the kids up into the car; I need you to drive me to the emergency room."

"Whaaaa....?"

And please hurry; the feeling is starting to return to my hand."

By the time we get to the ER, that entire hand is just a ball of fire; they get me processed pretty quickly and the ER doc is looking it over. She lifts the loose bit off, and of course the pain increases tenfold and my hand starts to shake & twitch.

"I'm going to need you to keep it still so I can inject it with lidocaine..." she warns, but it is literally all I can do not to snatch my hand away and sit on it... smack it against the wall, anything. The pain isn't quite as bad as the time I got blowed up and 3rd degree burns all down my other arm, but it is much more concentrated.

"I don't think I can..."

"Well, I need to numb the finger before I can stitch the bit back on."

*Cringe* "Doc... is there any medical reason not to apply the lidocaine directly to the raw meat right there? It is sterile, right...?"

"It's sterile... Umm... no, I guess there isn't."

"It won't affect the likelihood of the fingertip healing properly?"

"Not at all. But it's supposed to be injected."

"I get that... but just humor me, and drip a few drops from the needle on that raw meat and see if it helps me get a handle on the pain."

*drip... drip-drip*

I can feel the pain wash away, decreased what felt like easily 50dB as the droplets spread across the exposed flesh. In just a few seconds I'm able to hold the whole hand exactly where she wants it, perfectly still. She is able to get the needle right where it needs to be to deaden the primary nerve in the finger, and less than 5 minutes later I'm looking down at the scene above.

"Pain management." I say with a smile.

mnem
Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

[tautech]

Jebus memn, do we gotta hide anything sharp away ?

BTW, nice needlework !

[Mr. Scram]

Jebus memn, do we gotta hide anything sharp away ?

BTW, nice needlework !

Nah. Imagine the damage done with a blunt object.

[beanflying]

snip snip snip

"Pain management." I say with a smile.[/i]

mnem
Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

DISLIKE   


I was feeling like poo so photos weren't taken of my tips.

Initially zero pain no blood flow and just some thin very clean slices of me mixed in with the diced Carrots .... 10 seconds later as I wrapped it all up was a nice puddle on the floor. I was a bit lucky with the depth of the slice not needing grafts and the square tips over the next few months sort of reformed

Blunt knives or edges in my Cafes kitchen weren't a thing for better or worse. I was to tired and careless after nearly 16 hours on my feet working so my mandolin usage errs on the cautious side even several years later.

[bd139]

Well that’s annoying. Celebrated victory too early yesterday. PC won’t start first time again this morning ffs. Looks like that was one of the issues are least though.

Now only difference is it’s pretty cold. Got it running now after three attempts but will try a red/green test of a hair dryer on the motherboard caps and see if that helps. If it does I’ll swap the board out. If it’s not that I’ll blast the power supply! Feels like it might be the motherboard.

[beanflying]

I never looked in a printer manual before. I should try that next time 

My own bit of debugging for the afternoon. When I built my PC recently it had a little niggle with it. Basically it wouldn't power up first time every time. You had to turn it off and on again 3-4 times before it'd start up. Perfectly fine once it is up. So debugging time it was. Figured it'd be related to ATX startup.

....

Sometimes a more obvious answer could be it doesn't love something in your BIOS. Have you overclocked the CPU or are you running XMP or tweaked memory? Something couple be stopping from posting reliably or have you played with Ryzen Master or similar boosting software?

[bd139]

Nope nothing overclocked. Have been through every setting. It doesn’t get to the state where the BIOS has control. As mentioned earlier there’s an RC curve on the PWR_OK signal which appears not to arrive quick enough to confirm operation. If I pull the main ATX connector out and jump it then no RC curve. If it’s thermal (nasty caps)  then I should be able to isolate it to one side or another by preheating. I’ll just swap that part out and job done.

I’ve seen this before in HP DL380g2’s which wouldn’t start up until they’d been left off the pallet for 24 hours 

I bet there’s a wun hung lo cap somewhere doing this.

[Specmaster]

Are you getting any beeps from the pc speaker at all? It is a common failure mode in starting if some of your memory is bad. Try expermenting with only 1 stick of ram installed and then swapping the installed stick over with unloaded stick. Also check if you them installed in the first or second slots  as that can also sometimes make a differance.

[bd139]

There's no speaker in this . It's all fancy UEFI shit.  It's not memory. That has been tested thoroughly with memtest86. 24 hour run. Slots are correct - have checked in motherboard manual. Have tried with one slot loaded. Does the same.

I've opened a thread here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/pc-startup-debugging/msg2769172/

[McBryce]

So you invest in a 3D printer, thinking that you're going to get to make some custom cases for your projects and maybe a few replacement parts for your vintage TE... and then your 8 year old son discovers what you have...

I'm told it'll be my turn next week.

McBryce.

[bd139]

Hahaha been there! I am printing a pineapple pot at the moment 

You don't get a turn. I am learning that 

[beanflying]

So you invest in a 3D printer, thinking that you're going to get to make some custom cases for your projects and maybe a few replacement parts for your vintage TE... and then your 8 year old son discovers what you have...

I'm told it'll be my turn next week.

McBryce.

There is an upside to this. SHMBO issues decrease when you buy another one to keep up with demand

[Brumby]

There is an upside to this. SHMBO issues decrease when you buy another one to keep up with demand

Now I'm getting anxious about finally firing up my Wanhao.

Been reading and watching videos to (try to) understand and minimise the traps for young players.  I know I'm going to have to jump in at some point and get my feet wet, but I am somewhat failure averse.

Moving forward, I'm going to have to toughen up.

[McBryce]

So you invest in a 3D printer, thinking that you're going to get to make some custom cases for your projects and maybe a few replacement parts for your vintage TE... and then your 8 year old son discovers what you have...

I'm told it'll be my turn next week.

McBryce.

There is an upside to this. SHMBO issues decrease when you buy another one to keep up with demand

Sadly SWMBO still "doesn't see the point in having one", so a second one is out of the question, even if I had the space for another.

McBryce.

[beanflying]

So you invest in a 3D printer, thinking that you're going to get to make some custom cases for your projects and maybe a few replacement parts for your vintage TE... and then your 8 year old son discovers what you have...

I'm told it'll be my turn next week.

McBryce.

There is an upside to this. SHMBO issues decrease when you buy another one to keep up with demand

Sadly SWMBO still "doesn't see the point in having one", so a second one is out of the question, even if I had the space for another.

McBryce.

Start here and continue until you succeed https://www.thingiverse.com/tag:vase 

[nixiefreqq]

"What the...?" *Spots blood dripping on floor* "Oh, fu-u-u-ck..."

*Puts fingertip back roughly where it belongs & wraps with paper towel, then drops bagel back in the baggie & folds it under the stack of bagels with the other hand* (Hey... fresh cinnamon raisin bagels from local bakery )

"Honey, stop what you're doing & load the kids up into the car; I need you to drive me to the emergency room."

"Whaaaa....?"

And please hurry; the feeling is starting to return to my hand."

By the time we get to the ER, that entire hand is just a ball of fire; they get me processed pretty quickly and the ER doc is looking it over. She lifts the loose bit off, and of course the pain increases tenfold and my hand starts to shake & twitch.

"I'm going to need you to keep it still so I can inject it with lidocaine..." she warns, but it is literally all I can do not to snatch my hand away and sit on it... smack it against the wall, anything. The pain isn't quite as bad as the time I got blowed up and 3rd degree burns all down my other arm, but it is much more concentrated.

"I don't think I can..."

"Well, I need to numb the finger before I can stitch the bit back on."

*Cringe* "Doc... is there any medical reason not to apply the lidocaine directly to the raw meat right there? It is sterile, right...?"

"It's sterile... Umm... no, I guess there isn't."

"It won't affect the likelihood of the fingertip healing properly?"

"Not at all. But it's supposed to be injected."

"I get that... but just humor me, and drip a few drops from the needle on that raw meat and see if it helps me get a handle on the pain."

*drip... drip-drip*

I can feel the pain wash away, decreased what felt like easily 50dB as the droplets spread across the exposed flesh. In just a few seconds I'm able to hold the whole hand exactly where she wants it, perfectly still. She is able to get the needle right where it needs to be to deaden the primary nerve in the finger, and less than 5 minutes later I'm looking down at the scene above.

"Pain management." I say with a smile.

mnem
Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

jesus h christ!

and you scoffed at my previous knife comments.

(knew you had to have some history.  and yet you still use a toad stabber on your damn bagels?)

my last ER trip was for a slip up with a utility knife on a sunday afternoon.   swmbo likes to argue (its a hobby of hers).   so when i said take me to the ER she spent 10 minutes arguing that urgent care was a better option.  finally caved.  and damned if she didn't drive straight to the ER anyway. 

had stabbed myself in the palm.  the nurse was very impressed with the way she could monitor my pulse from the squirts (but never the less sent me to the back of the line).  hit a nerve too and the thumb still does not work right.  but because of the angle stitches were out.  she finally settled on super glue and a pressure bandage. 

met lots of unusual people during our 2 hours in the waiting area.  apparently the local junkies all show up on sunday afternoon hoping to score some pain meds from the weekend shift.  the staff seemed genuinely happy to see a problem with a straightforward cause, an easy solution, and an insurance card.

     

[Specmaster]

Hahaha been there! I am printing a pineapple pot at the moment 

You don't get a turn. I am learning that 

What, a blue pineapple 

[med6753]

SWMBO's are such a PITA.  Glad I don't have one. 

[McBryce]

So you invest in a 3D printer, thinking that you're going to get to make some custom cases for your projects and maybe a few replacement parts for your vintage TE... and then your 8 year old son discovers what you have...

I'm told it'll be my turn next week.

McBryce.

There is an upside to this. SHMBO issues decrease when you buy another one to keep up with demand

Sadly SWMBO still "doesn't see the point in having one", so a second one is out of the question, even if I had the space for another.

McBryce.

Start here and continue until you succeed https://www.thingiverse.com/tag:vase 

Tried that and failed. She seemed unimpressed with a plastic vase.

SWMBOs are ok most of the time, it's just annoying that unlike TE, you can't put them up on ebay when you find one with better features.

McBryce.

[capt bullshot]

So you invest in a 3D printer, thinking that you're going to get to make some custom cases for your projects and maybe a few replacement parts for your vintage TE... and then your 8 year old son discovers what you have...

I'm told it'll be my turn next week.

McBryce.

There is an upside to this. SHMBO issues decrease when you buy another one to keep up with demand

Sadly SWMBO still "doesn't see the point in having one", so a second one is out of the question, even if I had the space for another.

McBryce.

Start here and continue until you succeed https://www.thingiverse.com/tag:vase 

Tried that and failed. She seemed unimpressed with a plastic vase.

SWMBOs are ok most of the time, it's just annoying that unlike TE, you can't put them up on ebay when you find one with better features.

McBryce.

And you wouldn't want to collect them like TEA items