Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cubdriver]

One last pic, the documentation:

That's awesome - congratulations!  It's amazing to see one brandy-new some 30-odd years after it was made.  Beautiful!!

I hope to get some troubleshooting on the YTO unlock issue mine has this week.  Read a while back that some caps in the circuit are inclined to fail; need to search out that bit of info again.

-Pat

[mansaxel]

Speaking of enablers, you all do some nice work, but no one comes close to my favourite enabler: My wife.
    (in Sweden, we do the gifts circus on the 24th, so that's why I've got the scores
    already, and it would have been faster still if I could have posted yesterday
    evening, but, the nginx was a bad gateway, et c.) 

Under the tree, there was a chinesium desoldering station, a Sirio broadband UHF GP antenna, and a NanoVNA!

Apparently, I need to get my laptop upgraded now, because NanoVNASaver needs something less ancient...

[beanflying]

Speaking of enablers, you all do some nice work, but no one comes close to my favourite enabler: My wife.
    (in Sweden, we do the gifts circus on the 24th, so that's why I've got the scores
    already, and it would have been faster still if I could have posted yesterday
    evening, but, the nginx was a bad gateway, et c.) 

Under the tree, there was a chinesium desoldering station, a Sirio broadband UHF GP antenna, and a NanoVNA!

Apparently, I need to get my laptop upgraded now, because NanoVNASaver needs something less ancient...

Before anyone else asks does she have an unmarried sister who likes warmer climates

[Sam Spastic]

While I was troubleshooting where the outage was and flushing caches and resetting networks I said something about WIFI and my grandson 1 year old Pootie said "WIFI".
Clear as anything.  First new word I taught him.

Merry Christmas

[Martin.M]

date of cal:  jan. 13, 1966  ELEKLUFT is anything around Radar.
My heavy GE Oldie is still in use for tubes gear. 150/300/600V DC,  1/4%
american workmanship, build for 100 years + more. There are no plugs, banana plugs must be screwed .
The common is the + input, - ist to connect in the range.

[AVGresponding]

Seasons Greetings everyone!

Wow, what a day with no bleeding forum to calm my nerves, phew, don't know how I got through the day without some light entertainment from my favourite TEA members and their bantering, winding each other up. 

Anyone know the reason for the downtime yet?

[PA0PBZ]

Anyone know the reason for the downtime yet?

DDoS: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/website-error-reports/msg2843206/#msg2843206

[med6753]

Because I'm a man of my word, here are some pics of the very special delivery Santa brought me a few hours early today (funnily enough, he looked a *lot* like a UPS guy). It's an 8566B, but not just any 8566B. It's an honest to God new old stock 8566B. You read that right, NOS. Sealed in factory packaging. Needless to say nothing is missing, and it's in perfect condition. Serial number prefixes are 31, and the firmware is dated 1989, which would make it possibly the final revision known to exist.

Merry Christmas, everyone. 

What strikes me as incredible is that some rich guy, or a company, would spend what must have been a 5 figure amount on this SA and never use it.  I wish I could toss cash around like that and not care or at least have a rich relative who liked me. 

Needless to say that's an insane deal. 

Later this morning over to Son's place for breakfast and gift exchange.   

[bd139]

Sounds like my father and his photography kit. The shutter count on his Nikon D4 when I sold it was 23  . Also several rather expensive lenses. One of the lenses cost more than my car did.  . Figured he wasn’t going to get to spend most of his retirement cash so just spaffed it up the wall.

Edit: Anyway on a lighter note, merry Xmas and shit. Turkey in. Bowel empty. Life is good 

[med6753]

Bowel empty. Life is good 

TMI. 

Merry Christmas to you too and everyone else. 

[VK5RC]

Re Oculus' great find, I would guess a Uni or other Gubbermint funded department as the true reason behind the mystery. In the ~1970s it was common in Australia (and I suspect more widely) for many departments to get an annual budget and if you didn't spend it, next year they cut your funding!
That is my guess! I think HP did quite well out of this system - you didn't have to receive the gear just pay the money.

[BU508A]

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Please help yourself with the cookies:



Yesterday, I've assembled a nice Theremin for my godchildren (to annoy their parents  ).
It comes from the Franzis Verlag and works very nicely. Needs some minor modifikations, though (the wire is crap and I've added a soldering eyelet)

[med6753]

Re Oculus' great find, I would guess a Uni or other Gubbermint funded department as the true reason behind the mystery. In the ~1970s it was common in Australia (and I suspect more widely) for many departments to get an annual budget and if you didn't spend it, next year they cut your funding!
That is my guess! I think HP did quite well out of this system - you didn't have to receive the gear just pay the money.

I didn't consider that possibility and you might be right. Same budget policies here. If you don't spend it you lose it.

[Saskia]

was bored, could not read blog yesterday. So out of sheer boredom I had a look at my Nakamichi OMS-2. Using a scalpel I cut out those 2 caps in the audio path atop of the glue that looked, umm, suspicious.
After a wee bit of desoldering they came out just fine. Only problem was the grumpy husband who had to hold the pcb - I did not want to remove it from the chassis as I would have had to disconnect the laser pickup. Which is extremely susceptible to ESD, any Nak service manual warns that if you disconnect it without shorting it out first, you will blow the laser.

The original caps are no longer available. Looking at the caps that were originally used, these were Nichicons for the PSU and ELNA for the audio circuits.

This is what I got.

2 x (ELNAC-115) - 220uF 16V Elna Cerafine Electrolytic Capacitor - £2.04 (£1.02 each)
SKU: ELNAC-115, Location: AJ09, Tariff Code: 8532220000

2 x (ELNAS-165) - 1000uF 6.3V Elna Silmic II Electrolytic Capacitor - £2.76 (£1.38 each)
SKU: ELNAS-165, Location: AJ10, Tariff Code: 8532220000

4 x (ELNAS-150) - 470uF 16V Elna Silmic II Electrolytic Capacitor - £5.72 (£1.43 each)
SKU: ELNAS-150, Location: AJ10, Tariff Code: 8532220000

2 x NFG-870 - 2200uF 16V FG Nichicon type, UFG1C222MHM - £3.20 (£1.60 each)
SKU: NFG-870, Location: AJ11, Tariff Code: 8532250000

2 x NFG-890 - 2200uF 35V FG Nichicon type, UFG1V222MHM - £4.10 (£2.05 each)
SKU: NFG-890, Location: AJ11, Tariff Code: 8532250000

Inspecting the first pair of ELNAs after desoldering it turned out that the Caps themselves did not show any physical sign of damage. Measuring them gave me 451 / 452u which puts them within 5% of the advertized rating. Also they seem to be very well matched.

However some of that glue was sticking to one of the + terminals (eees zeees ze right word ? sorry my terminology sucks) and was seriously discolored and was crystallizing (?) which just does not seem right.

Anyway. After fixing this up when using a headphone I could not make out any more distortions.
So next step is to hook this up to the big preamp and give it a go.

[Cerebus]

What strikes me as incredible is that some rich guy, or a company, would spend what must have been a 5 figure amount on this SA and never use it.  I wish I could toss cash around like that and not care or at least have a rich relative who liked me. 

Sometimes you've just got to have a 'cold' spare for when downtime is completely unacceptable. I've been responsible for £40,000 routers sitting unused because the alternative of waiting for one to get shipped in the event of a critical failure was unacceptable.

I can't think under what circumstances you'd need an SA sitting around as an emergency spare, but I'd guess it's a situation like that. Either that or it was 'used' on a military 'cost plus' development contract back in the day when those were a thing. On those you'd be amazed what crap got bought just because there were no cost constraints - anything you bought for a job was immediately re-billed to the government.

[nfmax]

Sounds like my father and his photography kit. The shutter count on his Nikon D4 when I sold it was 23  . Also several rather expensive lenses. One of the lenses cost more than my car did.  . Figured he wasn’t going to get to spend most of his retirement cash so just spaffed it up the wall.

It's not such a bad policy - think of it as the Squandering Fund

Merry Christmas all!

[Saskia]

reminds me of the 5D Mark 2 sitting in the closet. I am using my 50D most of the time just because it is a hell of a lot more convenient.

[URI]

Because I'm a man of my word, here are some pics of the very special delivery Santa brought me a few hours early today (funnily enough, he looked a *lot* like a UPS guy). It's an 8566B, but not just any 8566B. It's an honest to God new old stock 8566B. You read that right, NOS. Sealed in factory packaging. Needless to say nothing is missing, and it's in perfect condition. Serial number prefixes are 31, and the firmware is dated 1989, which would make it possibly the final revision known to exist.

Merry Christmas, everyone. 

Great find and acquisition, 0culus!   

And merry Christmas to you all, fellow TEAs..!   

[Cerebus]

I have yet to dive into printing anything yet - partly because I need an enclosure to contain any potential fume issues (there is an asthmatic in the house) ... and partly because I wasn't sure what to print first.

Speaking as an asthmatic of many years standing, and who's been exposed to all sorts of crap, you don't have to be too fussy about it. With two exceptions, you can gauge things by your own response and just scale that response up. If it's just stinky but doesn't irritate you at all then it's probably not going to irritate an asthmatic. If it does actually irritate you (coughing, or a half desire to cough, sneezing, tickly nose etc.) then, yeah, it's probably going to bother an asthmatic. Generally we're a lot tougher than many people think, and I speak as a man who's been blue lighted to hospital with asthma attacks more times than I care to remember. (Ob. fact: Roger Bannister, of 4 minute mile fame, was an asthmatic.)

One exception mentioned above is polyurethanes, either heating cured polyurethane or the component parts of 2 part polyurethane foam, casting resin or water activated polyurethanes such as Gorilla Glue. The problem is isocyanates which are powerful respiratory irritants and sensitisers and are precursors for polyurethanes. Many asthmatics are powerfully triggered by isocyanates on first ever exposure and many non-asthmatics show asthma like symptoms on exposure to isocyanates after becoming sensitised by prior exposures. This little bit of information is far from being as well and widely know as it ought to be. Isocyanates are nasty chemicals. It's no accident that the occupational health requirements for working with isocyanates include using positive pressure respirators.

The other exception, kind of obvious to anyone who knows asthmatics, is known triggers for the particular asthmatic in question. Obviously Brumby will be aware of this, this is just general information to round my response out. These triggers are personal and there's no way that you can judge an asthmatic's response from your own. House dust in small quantities isn't going to bother most people - it'll have me scrabbling for an inhaler because I'm allergic to house dust mites; as will going from a hot house to the cold outside at this time of year (or vice-versa) or having a strong wind blowing in my face - all things that the average person will get no hint of respiratory distress from.

[Martin.M]

AC Option for HP204B (christmas edition, homebrew)

Required is ±13V for the oscillator.
I used 2 miniature transformers, some diode from the junk box, 2x 78L08 with a Zener 5,6V in the ground wire.









I will put it in the apparatus and test 

[Saskia]

@Cerebus

I can relate to that, and thank you for the information on isocyanates.

Have you tried the Dyson Pure Cool air purifier ? I find that it helps my allergy induced sinusitis.

[med6753]

Inspecting the first pair of ELNAs after desoldering it turned out that the Caps themselves did not show any physical sign of damage. Measuring them gave me 451 / 452u which puts them within 5% of the advertized rating. Also they seem to be very well matched.

However some of that glue was sticking to one of the + terminals (eees zeees ze right word ? sorry my terminology sucks) and was seriously discolored and was crystallizing (?) which just does not seem right.

Anyway. After fixing this up when using a headphone I could not make out any more distortions.
So next step is to hook this up to the big preamp and give it a go.

What you had there was not a defective capacitor but the glue used to hold them in place. It is infamous for drying out and turning conductive which would explain your distortion issues. If that unit has that same glue used in other areas you should take steps to remove it.

[drussell]

Still no further news on the K7105 apart from I opened a dispute with PayPal before I run out of time and in doing so, they managed to flush more info from the seller who has said that DPD told him that it take 14 days before they will have any further news., Wonder why he never told me that before 

That's a tad annoying.

As an aside, my good ol' K7103 is still my only digital "scope". 
A whopping 32 MS/s with 4K depth / channel.   

As you may be able to gather, my TE addiction disease has not yet metastasized into the realm of rabidly acquiring digital scopes.  (Well any scopes, really...) 

May god have mercy on our TE addicted souls. 

Merry Christmas, all!!!

[Saskia]

What you had there was not a defective capacitor but the glue used to hold them in place. It is infamous for drying out and turning conductive which would explain your distortion issues. If that unit has that same glue used in other areas you should take steps to remove it.

This is understood. Removing it basically means desoldering of all those caps, scraping off the glue and putting new caps in. Which is why I bought the complete set.

[Dek]

Merry Christmas to all of you.
Please help yourself with the cookies: