Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Happy New Year fellow TEA addicts, I saw the year in watching James Bond, Spectre on BlueRay with a Strawberry and Lime Cider and a box of Roses to hand, miserable old bastard that I am 

[nixiefreqq]

Happy new year, you insufferable bastards.

victor meldrew lives! 

[Vgkid]

The other issue is the dial of the ohms 'tens'. As you can see, it is slightly out of alignment with the other ones.
I will seek guidance from TEGAM on how to correct this and how the assembly should be done to ensure that the correct thread is unscrewed. Maybe I'll ask for a washer.

If that is a constant offset at all rotations, then simply loosen/rotate/retighten that dial using a hex key.

Sorry, I can't check my Dekapot/stat and tell you the right size, since I've had my right elbow seriously buggered.

Thats what I had to do on my db655, when i cleaned/fixed it. I remember it was small, and you needed to use either a L-key/T-hande hex for the length.

[nixiefreqq]

spent new years eve at my aging moms condo getting the lights back on in her bedroom and living room.

fecking (thank you father jack) push in connectors on receptacles are evil pieces of shit.

and it does not help when the labels on the panel are ALL wrong. (due to past renovation?  sheer incompetence?  or an electrician with aphasia?)

all is now well......gonna have the first cup of 2020 tea.  earl grey.....hot.

[Specmaster]

Happy new year, you insufferable bastards.

victor meldrew lives! 

"I don't believe it" 

[bd139]

Managed to go a whole day without posting anything on this thread . Happy new year to everyone! Slept right through it here and woke up at 10 AM

New year's resolutions: none

earl grey.....hot.

[Specmaster]

Managed to go a whole day without posting anything on this thread . Happy new year to everyone! Slept right through it here and woke up at 10 AM

New year's resolutions: none

earl grey.....hot.

None here either, I only break them straight away, like my promise to resist TEA, lasted all of about 30 seconds before I was back on eBay 

[med6753]

Managed to go a whole day without posting anything on this thread .

Same.

 Happy new year to everyone!

Ditto.

Slept right through it here and woke up at 10 AM

Again, same. But I woke up at 8 AM

New year's resolutions: none

Took the words right out of my mouth. 

[Kosmic]

Third party part, or donor unit with optional panel?

mnem
*watching The Tick with my son*

Not sure, took the picture on ebay I think. it almost look like Solartron did a version with binding post at some point.

In any case, this is what I'm targeting. I will put the 3d printer to good use 

[Kosmic]

Quick shot of the inside

please cover the Eproms with black tape, they can loose the data when your table work light is on.

Yes already done thanks 

This was the first time I opened the case. Look like the glue on the original sticker dried up and the labels started peeling off.

[mnementh]

Third party part, or donor unit with optional panel?

mnem
*watching The Tick with my son*

Not sure, took the picture on ebay I think. it almost look like Solartron did a version with binding post at some point.

In any case, this is what I'm targeting. I will put the 3d printer to good use 

Rockin'. If you do your print so the face is either up or down, you can get pretty good clarity on dropped text & symbols in the surface, as long as you choose a simple font w/o serifs and characters at least 3mm high and .5mm deep. Trying to do this on a side surface or with smaller characters is possible, but for the most part is an exercise in frustration.

If you're willing to paint, I'd print it face down; you'll get a nice mirror finish off the glass that smooths up nicely with satin/semi-flat paint. You also would waste a lot less filament for supports.  The down-side is that text is more finicky, and will require touch-up by hand. Your best "OEM-Look" will come from printing face-down on glass with no dropped text or symbols, then painting and applying decals for the text.

      Cheers to my EEVblog brethren     Thanks for the never ending rabbit hole that is test equipment  

Slacker! This year, you need to break into the 3D Printing rabbit-hole! 

mnem

[salvagedcircuitry]

2009 vs 2019

2009: Built my first work bench 
Joined @eevblog Test Equipment Anonymous.
2010: Need a bigger bench 
...
2019: Need a bigger bench 
...
Cheers to my EEVblog brethren 
Thanks for the never ending rabbit hole that is test equipment   

Bench looks fine...bigger shelves?

The only way left is to go up 

[salvagedcircuitry]

      Cheers to my EEVblog brethren     Thanks for the never ending rabbit hole that is test equipment  

Slacker! This year, you need to break into the 3D Printing rabbit-hole! 

mnem
(Attachment Link)

Hahaha. I could, but my library is pretty generous and has a 12x16x16in PLA printer for $1/hour fee. Materials are free. I can't beat that, anywhere. They sometimes clean up the part for me, which I tell them is not necessary 

[Kosmic]

If you're willing to paint, I'd print it face down; you'll get a nice mirror finish off the glass that smooths up nicely with satin/semi-flat paint. You also would waste a lot less filament for supports.  The down-side is that text is more finicky, and will require touch-up by hand. Your best "OEM-Look" will come from printing face-down on glass with no dropped text or symbols, then painting and applying decals for the text.

Exactly what I was planning. I'm wondering is I should get a mirror to make some nice flat surface. The Creality glass bed is not completely smooth.

[mnementh]

Slacker! This year, you need to break into the 3D Printing rabbit-hole! 

mnem

Hahaha. I could, but my library is pretty generous and has a 12x16x16in PLA printer for $1/hour fee. Materials are free. I can't beat that, anywhere. They sometimes clean up the part for me, which I tell them is not necessary 

Yeah, but that's usually a lot of waiting in line, especially for a window long enough to do a large high-res print that can take a day or two. Besides... there is something to the music of a Prusa-family Cartesian industriously printing away all night... you drift off to sleep just like when you were 10 on Christmas Eve, visions of your current 3DP "sugar plums" dancing in your head. The perfect lullaby for any maker/fixer like me. 

If you're willing to paint, I'd print it face down; you'll get a nice mirror finish off the glass that smooths up nicely with satin/semi-flat paint. You also would waste a lot less filament for supports.  The down-side is that text is more finicky, and will require touch-up by hand. Your best "OEM-Look" will come from printing face-down on glass with no dropped text or symbols, then painting and applying decals for the text.

Exactly what I was planning. I'm wondering is I should get a mirror to make some nice flat surface. The Creality glass bed is not completely smooth.

I got into the mirrors for my BLTouch auto-level, but found it was more assache than it was worth. 

I KEPT THEM for the convenience more than print surface; once leveled they pretty much keep their level, so toys like the BLTouch become more hassle than they're worth. Even with them working correctly, you have to tweak manually by watching the first layer half the time, so WTF good are they really?

Being able to set one print aside to cool and start the next one immediately is really nice. It's also fun to watch the parts cool and pop and jump off the surface all by themselves. 

The bed on my Tornado has a clone BuildTak print surface; it yields what I'd call a "semi-gloss" finish to the end-product. That is actually pretty nice for a panel. I have yet to peel that off and see what's underneath; but I need to as it has started to bubble and is affecting the stability of my mirrors, and I believe that additional dissimilar material layer is most of what is responsible for the poor thermal response I'm getting with my mirrors, which requires an additional 5-10 minutes heating for uniformity, even though my 120V bed "comes to temp" in like 90 seconds.



If you're talking about this glass bed, it looks to me like it yields a pretty glossy finish on the end-product. If you're talking about the silicon-carbon build plate (a composite plate of carbon fiber and thin glass bonded to a traditional aluminum build plate) I can't say; I haven't actually had one in hand.

Unless your surface is really rough or has poor uniformity, probably will still look good once painted, aside from the usual issues of stringing on edges, corner peeling, etc. Your best answer, of course, would come from whipping out a quick 150mm x 150mm x 2-3mm plate to see what it looks like painted. Something like that could be printing while you design the actual part. 

mnem
"FORE!!!"

[PA0PBZ]

So one week after the 2230 Rifa  disaster my 2430 decided to do the same 
Luckily I was a bit faster switching the thing off so no capacitor foil all over the place, just the smell 
Looks like another nice teardown to get to the pcb to replace the cap 

[bd139]

[mnementh]

mnem
*currently nuking my Taranis*

[GreyWoolfe]

New year's resolutions: none

Took the words right out of my mouth. 

I make the same resolution every year.  I resolve to never run naked through a car wash asking for the hot wax.  Have not broken it yet.

[mnementh]

Aww... come on... be brave and ask for the hot wax next time. 

mnem

[FransW]

So one week after the 2230 Rifa  disaster my 2430 decided to do the same 
Luckily I was a bit faster switching the thing off so no capacitor foil all over the place, just the smell 
Looks like another nice teardown to get to the pcb to replace the cap 

(Attachment Link)

Replace by same make?

[BU508A]

Happy New Year 2020 to all of you. 
The only resolution for 2020 I've made is: buying occasionly some TEA stuff.
Ähem. 

So, let's start with Zucca's tipp (thanks Zucca): I've bought this unit (Agilent E5810A GPIB HPIB Serial to Ethernet IP Gateway Converter):
 



https://www.ebay.de/itm/303240520271

But before I can take usage of this converter I'm planning to build a vacuum tube based Theremin which runs with 40V only!




And as an audio amplifer I think I'll use this one (using ECL81 instead of the PCL81):



The guy which build this thing first has used a 2x115V / 2x12V transformer for the output to the speaker. 
That has convinced me to build the same thing. 

[Specmaster]

So one week after the 2230 Rifa  disaster my 2430 decided to do the same 
Luckily I was a bit faster switching the thing off so no capacitor foil all over the place, just the smell 
Looks like another nice teardown to get to the pcb to replace the cap 

(Attachment Link)

Replace by same make?

I don't see why not, the meter is about 20 years old so its about time for it to fail especially if its been one of these meters that left on for hour after hour.

[tautech]

... and just enough smoke from the Ozzie bush fires to turn the setting crescent new moon to bright orange.

When you consider Auckland is more than 2100km away from the fires,  it just shows how bad it is.  On more than one occasion, I have been able to look directly at the sun at 3pm without a cloud in the sky - because the smoke has reduced it to an orange disc.

Well we had a better taste/smell of what you've been sending us on the trade winds this morning....7.45am through the kitchen window and it's been daylight for at least a couple of hours.
Almost too bright to stare at however plainly affected from the bush fires in Oz.

[beanflying]

A few small and mainly contained fires 30km away from here but the smell of burnt Aussie Forrest is in the air. Very mild day and little wind so the crews should get it sorted. 

New Toy unboxing too