Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

More.....

Tomorrow I start tackling the clean up of the mainframe.

Will most of the carbon comp resistors still be OK or are ya going to shotgun them ?

Shottgunning them on ceramic strips is a risky thing to do.

Yeah well, that's why we use silver bearing solder. 

Med, did you see this thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/my-tektronix-310-basket-case-project/
It's certainly worth a read.

Yea, I've seen that thread. I have a feeling this 535 might become a saga like that too. 

[med6753]

It's more the issue of there being multiple fragile components per solder joint than the actual joint material. The ceramic strips can take a lot of punishment. The other components can't!

It is both, actually. The silver plating on those strips is a bit fragile. I try not to stick a soldering iron into those unless I really really must.

And the composition resistors? That seems to be part of the 184 problem, too... a number of the resistors have drifted enough to change the bias on a whole string of transistors. I am trying to figure out if I can do something beside replacing them as I am not sure the countdown board can stand another round of rework.

CRO's are another thing entirely when it comes to their HV and high ohm value divider resistors....it is rare when they haven't drifted wildy from their original values.

From the all of about 15 minutes that I had the 535 powered up the trace was sharp with no focus/astig issues which suggests that the resistors in the focus divider circuit are in good shape.

[bd139]

That's good news. Sounding like a nice bit of kit 

[Cerebus]

As I probably mentioned in the distant past, I did a summer job a very long time ago now for the Furniture Industry Research Association. As a junior lab monkey my task was to develop a method to effectively test surfaces for nicotine discolouration. I designed a smoking machine which would smoke a pipe and with the aid of a vacuum pump and filter it would suck this into a vacuum flask containing the material. Looked like this roughly:



This lead to me passive smoking about 7kg of tobacco and having to scrub 5mm thick layers of that and tar off everything. Ugh. Until you've dealt with it like that it looks approachable.

I look now and I just walk away. I can't face it.

On the positive note, you don't know a good job until you've had a shit job.

Anyway back to turning all the christmas gifted wine into urine and watching ST Voyager... 

I used to share a pint from time to time with a fella called Chris whose day job was running the Smoking Machine at the Laboratory of the Government Chemist. Said machine produced the samples that went to produce the official UK tar and nicotine figures on packets of cigarettes. Chris didn't smoke but was well popular down the pub as he had a near endless supply of part packets of cigarettes. Once he had adequate collected samples the remaining example part and full packets of cigarettes were destined for the bin, so he just took a big bag full down the pub and handed them out to all comers.

[tautech]

Med, did you see this thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/my-tektronix-310-basket-case-project/
It's certainly worth a read.

Yea, I've seen that thread. I have a feeling this 535 might become a saga like that too. 

Don't you need a new project to get your teeth into ?
And exercise that flash new soldering station you scored ?

Anyways we know you are up to it and what better to do when the weather is shitty outside. 

[kj7e]

Not all measurements can be trusted, HP 3400A vs 3410A and introducing some noise with a ground loop.

[AVGresponding]

Well, colour me incan-fucking-descant!

Just had an ebay auction finish 20 seconds or so early to what is presumably a shill bid.   
I guess the bidding wasn't as fast as the seller wanted, though he ended it a ways short of what I was about to throw at it.
Duly reported to ebay, hope he gets the boot, fecking scrote... ehhh, I've calmed down a bit now...   
(Was a Metcal 1100 with iron and w.h.y. included, seller bailed to his shill at £87, I was gonna throw a £100+ at it   )

There are vegan pigs in a blanket, which are as pointless and unappetising as those other US inventions, "fat free sour cream" and "egg free omlettes".

Yeah, my daughter is a veggie and insists on this nonsense, and inflicts it on her kids also, though her fiancee remains staunchly omnivorous.
I'm hoping I can persuade them with logic when they are old enough to understand Darwin and Boole...

[Kosmic]

For those of you how like to use Spice simulators, Spectrum Software is closing down and they are giving away Micro-cap. They were selling that software for something like 5K$ earlier this year.

http://www.spectrum-soft.com/download/download.shtm

[mansaxel]

Does this solve the whole problem of duck either being almost universally overcooked or undercooked? Fancying Chinese with all this duck talk now 

Duck is to be done right,  French style; i.e. Magret de canard, not whole bird cooked in one piece. The breast filets are cut with a checkered pattern on the fatty side, salted and peppered, and browned fat side down until slightly crisp. Then flipped around and lightly browned on the opposite side, after which they go in the oven at perhaps 140° C with a suitable piece of TE that signals when core temperature is ~ 65° C.  I serve them with a potato gratin or "Worlds best potatoes" and a cherry sauce. Haricots verts are optional, but nice. A good bottle of sharp Burgundy or a New World equivalent is the preferred company. I've recently fallen for a Pinot Noir from "Gardo & Morris", a Swedish-Kiwi coöperation. Good value for money, and readily available.

The rest of the duck? Well, the best way to deal with it is to make Duck Confit (preserve the bird in its own fat) of the legs and perhaps wings, and all small pieces of meat that are left over. When later preparing the confit for consumption, the duck fat is used to fry the potatoes, creating Pommes Sarladaise. Or, one can make Cassoulet, which is layers upon layers of umami taste and pure happiness. Does require a different wine, though. Perhaps a loudmouthed Languedoc or similar.

Duck is probably the most tasty bird there is (The goose, which is even fattier, done southern (swedish) style with red cabbage, pressed potato and a wine sauce is a worthy competitor. But only if the obligatory starter, black soup (made from goose blood much like black pudding, but, soup) is home made...), and a day with duck on the menu is a happy day.

[xrunner]

... black soup (made from goose blood much like black pudding, but, soup) is home made...), and a day with duck on the menu is a happy day.

No. Please, no. No, no, no blood soup. 

[mansaxel]

... black soup (made from goose blood much like black pudding, but, soup) is home made...), and a day with duck on the menu is a happy day.

No. Please, no. No, no, no blood soup. 

The soup divides families in this country too. But I am an insistent supporter of it.  A very dry (Sercial) Madeira is the optimum drink to go with the soup. 

[tggzzz]

Duck is probably the most tasty bird there is (The goose, which is even fattier, done southern (swedish) style with red cabbage, pressed potato and a wine sauce is a worthy competitor. But only if the obligatory starter, black soup (made from goose blood much like black pudding, but, soup) is home made...), and a day with duck on the menu is a happy day.

Do you have a tradition of "game" in Sweden? Might be difficult if the temperature is too low.

A well hung pheasant has a lot more flavour than duck etc. The traditional way to know when a pheasant is ready is to hang several in a cool room by the neck until the first body hits the floor. That's a bit too well hung for my taste, but pheasant definitely isn't "brown chicken".

Traditional way to roast chestnuts: pierce all but one and place them on the top edge of a fire's grate. When the unpierced one explodes, the rest are just right. That does work well, but I have to use a conventional oven and cover them with ali foil to contain the shrapnel.

[tggzzz]

There are vegan pigs in a blanket, which are as pointless and unappetising as those other US inventions, "fat free sour cream" and "egg free omlettes".

Yeah, my daughter is a veggie and insists on this nonsense, and inflicts it on her kids also, though her fiancee remains staunchly omnivorous.
I'm hoping I can persuade them with logic when they are old enough to understand Darwin and Boole...

Veggie != vegan. My daughter is a pescatorian, which is safe.

Be wary of trying to use rational logic to counter an emotional religious position; it will fail because the points will not be heard. Depending on the audience, an appropriate story can be more convincing than mere facts.

[Specmaster]

Picked up this Thurlby PL320 power supply to day (RS Branded) and in the proper tradition before turning it on I took it apart and gave it the once over for any problems and found nothing apart from a thin layer of dust. I was pleased to see that it was part together with common parts and indeed even locally made parts such as the power transformer, which was made by Eastern Transformers and Equipment in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, who used to be one of my customers from many years back.

The transformer is well over speced for a 2A power supply so shouldn't have any problems in that Dept. Cleaned up the dust and powered up (no photos as yet of this powered) and it was again well within spec for the calibration of the meters being 0.1% rated at the lower end of the output and just outside of spec at maximum indicated output voltage of 32.66 indicated but measures 32.7101v. Perhaps I'll try to recalibrate this a tad later. I have the service manual but all accounts this is a bit fiddly to get right. As it is it much better than the switched mode supply that it replaces and good enough for the applications that I'm going to be using it for anyway. And apart from the accuracy of the settings being that much better than the old unit, it is totally silent in operation and according to what I've read is virtually unbreakable in use.

If anyone is interested I'll do some photos of it powered tomorrow showing the indicated against measured voltages and post them. Meantime, here are today's photos.

[bitseeker]

Done fixing these two guys:

Both of them were victims of the capacitor plague, still some self test failures left after replacing all the SMT electrolytic caps.

Left hand one had a stable Acquisition board fail (delayed trigger doesn't work), otherwise OK. Fixed by removing and re-soldering the trigger select / comparator chip 

Right hand one had some intermittent Acq. failure (missing samples in ETS mode, Ramp doesn't end self test message). Fixed by replacing a SMT transistor (which most probably wasn't bad at all), and one more thoroughly board cleaning run.

Anyway, now they're working again, what do one want to do with TDS420's? Anyone to know if one can hack them to 460's?

Congrats! How long did that take? Lots of caps from what I recall.

[VK5RC]

@med, your Tek looks very clean - I don't think it will be too bad, below is a link to my 545 'fun'. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/restoration-repair-of-tektronix-545/

My ft101 had a diversion last night with one of my bits of old hp test gear letting out the evil smoke from a Schaffner EMI mains filter/fuse/voltage switch! Rather bizarrely - an exact fit (both mechanically and electrically) part is still available ~$45, too good to pass up, so I hope Schaffner have picked up their game.
Rob

[mnementh]

...Grandma used to call that "piggies in a poke"; a huge bundle of sausage stuffed inside a large fowl (turkey/duck/goose) and roasted. She usually used sweet Italian sausage for hers; the juices from the sausage flavor the drippings, which are then periodically spooned/brushed over the top of it all as it cooks.

mnem

Was your Grandmother from Ireland/Scotland? Pig in a poke is how we describe buying something without having seen it beforehand. The "poke" comes from the old celtic word for sack.

McBryce.

Welsh. Edwards clan. Somewhere there's a pic of adolescent mnem at a family reunion wearing nothing but the tartan and whett the gewd laird gevv' meh.

Yes, I'm fully aware of the common meaning of the phrase; so was she. It was a play on the phrase, given the satchel-like appearance of the opening.

mnem
"Sooo... ye think ye knows what's in a sassage, dew ye...?" ~Grandmomma

[mnementh]

I am stuck in a maze of twisty little transistors, mostly all alike.... (SNIP)

Ten minutes after walking away from the bench I decided that I need to get re-acquainted with Linux, so I dug up an old Dell Chromebook and installed Linux on it. Tried to do a dual boot with Chromeos (why? because you can, of course) but it failed due to some dynamic weirdness during the boot sequence, so I flashed a full custom ROM and did a clean install. Now I just need to figure out how to trim down the graphical user interface to the minimum, add a root password, and see if I can avoid bricking it while I re-learn Linux.

Your laptop has been eaten by a Grue.

...I have consumed the entire stock of alcohol in the house now. Exercising that liver. I can apparently still type which is quite frankly miraculous. I'm sure i'll be suffering from a complex case of miserablefuckeritis in the morning 

I have a new favorite curse-word! 

mnem
miserablefuckeritis... miserablefuckeritis... miserablefuckeritis...

Because I can. 

[mnementh]

... black soup (made from goose blood much like black pudding, but, soup) is home made...), and a day with duck on the menu is a happy day.

No. Please, no. No, no, no blood soup. 

The soup divides families in this country too. But I am an insistent supporter of it.  A very dry (Sercial) Madeira is the optimum drink to go with the soup.

There is not enough wine in Paris to wash the taste of that from my mouth... I tried it once, and in all honesty I'd rather eat mud bugs than so much as SMELL it again.    Please, can we just have chicken-fried steak instead of all that mess...?

mnem
...avec pommes de terre au four!

[Martin.M]

Thanks. It was a real chore getting 65 pounds of dead weight up a flight of stairs. And to top it off the handles are broken. 

Maybe you can get some in Tek blue...




-Pat

Edit to add:  https://smile.amazon.com/Country-Brook-Design-Durable-Webbing/dp/B00H5B9EVI/ref=sr_1_50?keywords=nylon%2Bstrap&qid=1577413541&sr=8-50&th=1

Ice blue or ocean blue would work...

synthetic leather, Tek blue, here in stock. can go in a letter
the handles must have a metal plate inside, easy to build from packing steel band.

[mansaxel]

Do you have a tradition of "game" in Sweden? Might be difficult if the temperature is too low.

A well hung pheasant has a lot more flavour than duck etc.

Oh, yes. Duck is easier to get, though. Locally, we have pheasants, black grouse, wood grouse and some others, and they are valued as food. It's been a very long time since I had some. 

[mansaxel]

The soup divides families in this country too. But I am an insistent supporter of it.  A very dry (Sercial) Madeira is the optimum drink to go with the soup.

There is not enough wine in Paris to wash the taste of that from my mouth... I tried it once, and in all honesty I'd rather eat mud bugs than so much as SMELL it again.

I don't think you'll find very good Sercial in Paris, since Madeira is part of Portugal, and the French, for reasonably good reasons, think they have enough good wine in-country. 

[bd139]

Does this solve the whole problem of duck either being almost universally overcooked or undercooked? Fancying Chinese with all this duck talk now 

Duck is to be done right,  French style; i.e. Magret de canard, not whole bird cooked in one piece. The breast filets are cut with a checkered pattern on the fatty side, salted and peppered, and browned fat side down until slightly crisp. Then flipped around and lightly browned on the opposite side, after which they go in the oven at perhaps 140° C with a suitable piece of TE that signals when core temperature is ~ 65° C.  I serve them with a potato gratin or "Worlds best potatoes" and a cherry sauce. Haricots verts are optional, but nice. A good bottle of sharp Burgundy or a New World equivalent is the preferred company. I've recently fallen for a Pinot Noir from "Gardo & Morris", a Swedish-Kiwi coöperation. Good value for money, and readily available.

The rest of the duck? Well, the best way to deal with it is to make Duck Confit (preserve the bird in its own fat) of the legs and perhaps wings, and all small pieces of meat that are left over. When later preparing the confit for consumption, the duck fat is used to fry the potatoes, creating Pommes Sarladaise. Or, one can make Cassoulet, which is layers upon layers of umami taste and pure happiness. Does require a different wine, though. Perhaps a loudmouthed Languedoc or similar.

Duck is probably the most tasty bird there is (The goose, which is even fattier, done southern (swedish) style with red cabbage, pressed potato and a wine sauce is a worthy competitor. But only if the obligatory starter, black soup (made from goose blood much like black pudding, but, soup) is home made...), and a day with duck on the menu is a happy day.

You're making me hungry. More research will be done. And another attempt will be made.

I used to share a pint from time to time with a fella called Chris whose day job was running the Smoking Machine at the Laboratory of the Government Chemist. Said machine produced the samples that went to produce the official UK tar and nicotine figures on packets of cigarettes. Chris didn't smoke but was well popular down the pub as he had a near endless supply of part packets of cigarettes. Once he had adequate collected samples the remaining example part and full packets of cigarettes were destined for the bin, so he just took a big bag full down the pub and handed them out to all comers.

Ugh I feel sorry for the guy. I'd have probably done exactly the same thing with the left overs 

...I have consumed the entire stock of alcohol in the house now. Exercising that liver. I can apparently still type which is quite frankly miraculous. I'm sure i'll be suffering from a complex case of miserablefuckeritis in the morning 

I have a new favorite curse-word! 

mnem
miserablefuckeritis... miserablefuckeritis... miserablefuckeritis...

Because I can. 

Hahaha. Surprisingly good mood today and not a sign of a headache. Have loaded up on a nice omelette and black coffee and am going to nip out and grab some food for the next couple of days. Due to New Year Panic and my own New Year Apathy all the delivery slots are gone  . I'm slightly disappointed as I felt like having miserablefuckeritis.

Picked up this Thurlby PL320 power supply to day (RS Branded) and in the proper tradition before turning it on I took it apart and gave it the once over for any problems and found nothing apart from a thin layer of dust. I was pleased to see that it was part together with common parts and indeed even locally made parts such as the power transformer, which was made by Eastern Transformers and Equipment in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, who used to be one of my customers from many years back.

The transformer is well over speced for a 2A power supply so shouldn't have any problems in that Dept. Cleaned up the dust and powered up (no photos as yet of this powered) and it was again well within spec for the calibration of the meters being 0.1% rated at the lower end of the output and just outside of spec at maximum indicated output voltage of 32.66 indicated but measures 32.7101v. Perhaps I'll try to recalibrate this a tad later. I have the service manual but all accounts this is a bit fiddly to get right. As it is it much better than the switched mode supply that it replaces and good enough for the applications that I'm going to be using it for anyway. And apart from the accuracy of the settings being that much better than the old unit, it is totally silent in operation and according to what I've read is virtually unbreakable in use.

If anyone is interested I'll do some photos of it powered tomorrow showing the indicated against measured voltages and post them. Meantime, here are today's photos.

Looking good. You missed the vile bastard earlier revision ones fortunately. That's a relatively new one. Two things to watch out for are duff electrolytic caps on the front panel board leading to drift and voltage fluctuation and failing LED displays. Both easily obtainable fortunately. Displays are sold by a dude in Spain. Enjoy 

... black soup (made from goose blood much like black pudding, but, soup) is home made...), and a day with duck on the menu is a happy day.

No. Please, no. No, no, no blood soup. 

The soup divides families in this country too. But I am an insistent supporter of it.  A very dry (Sercial) Madeira is the optimum drink to go with the soup.

There is not enough wine in Paris to wash the taste of that from my mouth... I tried it once, and in all honesty I'd rather eat mud bugs than so much as SMELL it again.    Please, can we just have chicken-fried steak instead of all that mess...?

mnem
...avec pommes de terre au four!

That's fairly nice compared to what is out there. Go find yourself a Tiet Canh. Last time I ever step foot in a Vietnamese restaurant and get them to recommend something. Bleurgh. That rates up there with fermented Herring on the list of things that actually made me gag. The latter someone bought me as a joke and I opened it, nearly puked in the tin, bailed out of the back door and slung it over the back fence 

[tggzzz]

That's fairly nice compared to what is out there. Go find yourself a Tiet Canh. Last time I ever step foot in a Vietnamese restaurant and get them to recommend something. Bleurgh. That rates up there with fermented Herring on the list of things that actually made me gag. The latter someone bought me as a joke and I opened it, nearly puked in the tin, bailed out of the back door and slung it over the back fence 

Now I begin to understand why you seem to want to move somewhere where the neighbours aren't too close to your house

Or did you think their dog/cat would like it, eat it, and... ?

For more amusement w.r.t. traditional foods, lookup garum /  liquamen; wakypedia is sufficient.

[bd139]

That's fairly nice compared to what is out there. Go find yourself a Tiet Canh. Last time I ever step foot in a Vietnamese restaurant and get them to recommend something. Bleurgh. That rates up there with fermented Herring on the list of things that actually made me gag. The latter someone bought me as a joke and I opened it, nearly puked in the tin, bailed out of the back door and slung it over the back fence 

Now I begin to understand why you seem to want to move somewhere where the neighbours aren't too close to your house

Or did you think their dog/cat would like it, eat it, and... ?

For more amusement w.r.t. traditional foods, lookup garum /  liquamen; wakypedia is sufficient.

Oh yes. I've heard of that before. It certainly sounds grim! From the article, my favourite line happens to be "The biological anthropologist Piers Mitchell suggests that garum may have helped spread fish tapeworms across Europe."

All this talk of food is making me hungry again! Will raid the veg section and knock up something steaky and salady related later. May attempt duck again tomorrow.