Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cerebus]

Thanks for reminding me how freaking old I am. 

Ahh, you don't need me to do that. That's the job of that little "Oooo" noise you make whenever you bend over to pick something off the floor. 

If it's any consolation the girlfriend in question that I'm positing a young Jaime resembled would now be more than old enough to be Jaime's mother.

[med6753]

I r sad......just found this....

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/neil-peart-rush-obituary-936221/


One of my favorite Rush tunes and as usual Peart is an absolute genius on the drums....

[tggzzz]

Ms Jaime is the same age as my Daughter. Thanks for reminding me how freaking old I am. 

2050-1-1 is closer than 1990-1-1.

The 22nd century is much closer than my mother's birthday, by decades.

[bd139]

I've been kind of assuming that the Sinclair => Thurlby association was common knowledge, at least among the Brits here assembled.

Mostly yes but there are a few surprised looking people. Also it appears to be little known about outside the UK. Sort of like when you mention Acorn Computers to an American who's replying to you on his/her ARM equipped smartphone.

Still trying to work out how Black Star fits in with this as well. I actually bought a new at the time Black Star Jupiter 2000 function generator once. They were up the road to Thurlby etc in St Ives and the internal construction of their stuff is almost identical to the newer TG200 generators. Also Black Star is currently registered to the same directors as TTI are. Also some interesting connections - looks like TTI has directorship relations with Tyco Electronics.

I used to know three people who used to work at Sinclair; well, strictly I still do know them but our paths haven't crossed for a while. Their comments on Clive Sinclair himself were, let's say "not favourable" and gloss over the actual vocabulary used, but not as unfavourable as their remarks on Alan Sugar (who took over the remains of the computing side of Sinclair when Clive bailed out) and we'll definitely gloss over the vocabulary used there as I believe I could still be arrested for using some of those words publicly.

Yes indeed. I've heard the same. A very close relative was unfortunate enough to have worked for a Sinclair competitor back in the 1980s and that was the word in the street as well. I think most innovation was driven by frustration with wankers back then.

That Clive Sinclair has since become "Sir Clive" and Alan Sugar "Lord Sugar" tells you all you need to know about the system that doles out those honours.

Indeed.

I was actually gifted a position of nobility a while back which means I should be referred as lord bd139. The territory is somewhat disputed and the legitimacy dubious though (Sealand) 

[Specmaster]

yep.  remember my first calculator better than my first girlfriend.  it was a ti sr10.  there is a rumor that my brother still has it in a pile o junk somewhere in his garage.  gotta' keep nagging him to dig it out.

"You silly twisted boy, you!" I definately remember my first girlfriend better than my first calculator. The girlfriend looked like what I imagine a young version of Jaime Murray looked like, the calculator was a Sinclair Scientific calculator that I built from a kit. I learned a lot from exploring both of them.

Which of these two would you opt to assign memory storage to?

Jaime Murray: Sinclair Scientific:

Ditto, the calculator, not the girlfriend sadly. That calculator is a marvel really, I too brought it as a kit and it is somewhere in my garage and still works. It was about the most affordable scientific calculator of its day. I also had the Black watch but that was ready built and ate the batteries. One I purchased from Dixon's shop in Watford and the other I went to Sinclair's officers in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, although I can't remember which came from where. The watch however didn't last very long, being made from plastic it met an untimely death when I was lorry driving for a couple of years and subsequently replaced with a more robust metal watch very similar to the one shown below, which was purchased from one of the national newspapers of the time when they ran a number of promotions. That was followed a little while later by a Casio CQ-1, which I still have today and it still works.




Edit:
The last I heard, is that Sir Clive Sinclair is living in a flat sandwiched between Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square, London. That is a very expensive area to live.

[0culus]

If we're bringing up calculator watches now, how could anyone forget the HP 01?



https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp01.htm

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/personalsystems/0022/other/0022hpjournal.pdf

nixiefreqq will be happy to know that it's actually NOT an RPN calculator.

[Brumby]

I was actually gifted a position of nobility a while back which means I should be referred as lord bd139.

(This could be entertaining....  )

The territory is somewhat disputed and the legitimacy dubious though

That sounds about right.

[worsthorse]

I was actually gifted a position of nobility a while back which means I should be referred as lord bd139.

(This could be entertaining....  )

The territory is somewhat disputed and the legitimacy dubious though

That sounds about right.

Yeah, somehow that doesn't surprise me either. 

[0culus]

I was actually gifted a position of nobility a while back which means I should be referred as lord bd139. The territory is somewhat disputed and the legitimacy dubious though (Sealand) 

I was gonna guess Nigeria. 

[Cerebus]

I was actually gifted a position of nobility a while back which means I should be referred as lord bd139. The territory is somewhat disputed and the legitimacy dubious though (Sealand) 

I was knighted in Cornwall in August 1999 by one Arthur Uther Pendragon, aka King Arthur - formerly known as John Timothy Rothwell. Of course I don't use the title, my views on such fripperies are well known, but instead prefer to go by my formal London title of "Oi! Mate!".

You can tell that Arthur is pukka royalty (and therefore that my knighthood is completely legitimate) because he can fall asleep drunk next to a huge camp fire, while wearing white robes and when the fire has reduced to a large pile of very dirty ashes in the morning, Arthur is still next to it and still has clean robes despite rolling around in said ashes. With evidence like that it stands to reason that he's got natural Kingly nobility.  I haven't tested whether his touch can cure scrofula, but I bet it can. 

Used to know him quite well, but I haven't seen him in years. Genuinely nice bloke and I can't tell whether he's having a huge joke on all of us with the whole "reincarnation of King Arthur" thing or whether he actually believes it. If he is a loony, he's still saner than all the politicians and most of the big company C level executives that I've met.

[jadew]

TEA time:

I've purchased a Fluke PM6681 with the UCXO and no 3GHz prescaler for around 325.- Euro:



...

A 3GHz prescaler is also available on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/333316913399

Congrats on your acquisition! They're awesome counters.

I'm the one making those prescalers, and I wanted to say that as of Monday, the 8 GHz variant will be back in stock too: https://cojotech.com/pmo-080

Cheers!

[beanflying]

Having a few moments of Zen with three generations of gear. The 34401A and 735A have been locked together and on for over a month and I haven't used the 34461A for over a week (yes I am a bad owner).

This is why you don't just flick on a device and expect it to read properly. It took nearly 30 minutes before the upward drift on the 34461A stopped and got somewhere near steady, stable and accurate. Sitting about 5PPM low against the 34401A on a very mild 15C day if it warms up toward 20C that gap will close towards 1-2 PPM as the 34461A isn't as stable.

[ArthurDent]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/?action=dlattach;attach=907086;image

every time I see that counter dial on your HP735, I wince. I got so sick of mine with the numbers peeling off, I replaced it.

[0culus]

Small new acquisition in the lab today. An HP 11720A pulse modulator, 2-18 GHz. Perfect companion to my 8672A, which only has AM and FM. It's in great shape, and had all four feet + tilting bales. Less than $100 shipped.

[Cerebus]

Having a few moments of Zen with three generations of gear. The 34401A and 735A have been locked together and on for over a month and I haven't used the 34461A for over a week (yes I am a bad owner).

This is why you don't just flick on a device and expect it to read properly. It took nearly 30 minutes before the upward drift on the 34461A stopped and got somewhere near steady, stable and accurate. Sitting about 5PPM low against the 34401A on a very mild 15C day if it warms up toward 20C that gap will close towards 1-2 PPM as the 34461A isn't as stable.

My 34661A takes about 15 minutes to fully warm up for all but the most critical measurements - that equates to a 11.2 uV upward drift of the measured zero of a short over 15 minutes on the 100 mV range. It takes another 15 minutes for the final ~1 uV drift up to a settled true zero. So mine's about -120 ppm off at turn on, hits ~ -1 ppm warm-up error in 15 minutes, and finally reaches 'spec' at 30 minutes.

It's all a question of what kind of measurements you're firing it up for. Need ~ 1mV accuracy on the 10V range (100 ppm/0.01%)? No significant warm-up needed. Want to squeeze out every last PPM like you were, yeah you'll be waiting 30 minutes. If I want to make critical measurements I power it up with a short on the input, turn the trend chart on, go and make a coffee and don't touch the meter until all the warm-up drift has fully settled out.

Because of the sheer measurement power of something like the 34661A it's easy to get spooked (in everyday non-critical measurements) by what are really quite small changes. Case in point of me getting nearly caught out:- I was measuring the V_f of a 1N4002 on mine the other day. I already had the meter on displaying trend with autoscale, intending to check a few  diodes in quick succession just to get a quick visual indication of the diode to diode V_f - mere curiosity about the batch consistency of a cheap commodity component.

Measured the first diode and grabbed the diode to change it for the next. Wham! Trace starts shooting down the screen. It took me a half minute to register that the downward slope was the -2mV/C tempco of the diode and what looked like a large change was down to the fact that the range initially displayed on the trend chart was only a few hundreds of uV. Final result when I'd corrected my careless handling and allowed some temperature settling time on each diode - less than 1 mV diode to diode variation for the first few diodes on the same bandolier.

[mnementh]

Adding the Controller in circuit these figures remain approximately the same at 5.2V for single channel operation; output of either WHITE or WARM WHITE channel is approx 6.4W. However, when both channels are enabled the controller is programmed to reduce max output to approx 60% Duty cycle; this drops total output to approx 8.4W @ 2.16A total current. meh.

Still, a good experiment; you can get excellent illumination from this LED magnifier simply by rewiring with 18ga using the original controller and a good 5V/2A power pack, or even better @worsthorse: Heads-up!  you can remove it all and get amazing illumination using a nice, quiet, EMI-free linear to drive both channels at 4.8-5V/3.2A. For approximately US$25 plus your time & power source.

Cheers,

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

@mnem... thanks for the heads-up.  I will probably pick one up and modify it as suggested. One thing I have plenty of around here is 12 volts.   

That should be... interesting. 

mnem
Please shoot plenty of video.

[mnementh]

hmmmmm.  well ok.  will defer to you guys since sinclair calculators were never a thing over here. but the timex sinclair computer was a big seller in the states.  and it was a fun despite being a toy.

Yeah... they were awesome to throw into the shredder when I "work-shared" with my buddies at the e-Cycle center in San Damntonio. Much more satisfying than old HP calculators. 

mnem
Especially with the 16MB memory modules... *Snap! crackle! POP!!!*

[bitseeker]

Therapy...ahhhhhhh

Now that's the proper way to start a TEA post.

[mnementh]

If we're bringing up calculator watches now, how could anyone forget the HP 01?

   https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp01.htm   http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/personalsystems/0022/other/0022hpjournal.pdf

nixiefreqq will be happy to know that it's actually NOT an RPN calculator.

I had one of these when they were new. The first run with mineral glass lens and SS buttons, not the crappy 2nd run with plastic lens and aluminized plastic buttons. *spits on the ground*

mnem
   
http://calcwatch.com/

[bitseeker]

TEA time:

I've purchased a Fluke PM6681 with the UCXO and no 3GHz prescaler for around 325.- Euro:



...

A 3GHz prescaler is also available on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/333316913399

Congrats on your acquisition! They're awesome counters.

I'm the one making those prescalers, and I wanted to say that as of Monday, the 8 GHz variant will be back in stock too: https://cojotech.com/pmo-080

Cheers!

Congrats, BU, on that TEAcquisition. I remember watching Shahriar's vid on one.

jadew, I didn't know you made those pre-scalers. Very cool. Thanks for catching the post about it here.

[BravoV]

New member of family ... Kikusui PMC350-0.2A , 0-350 VDC , 200mA

Attached few tear down photos below.

Edit : Also as reference, other member also posted teardown of PMC500-0.1A model -> HERE

[mnementh]

I was actually gifted a position of nobility a while back which means I should be referred as lord bd139. The territory is somewhat disputed and the legitimacy dubious though (Sealand) 

I was knighted in Cornwall in August 1999 by one Arthur Uther Pendragon, aka King Arthur - formerly known as John Timothy Rothwell. Of course I don't use the title, my views on such fripperies are well known, but instead prefer to go by my formal London title of "Oi! Mate!".(SNIP)

Henceforth, your title within this august body shall be Lord 'elpus. Whenever we feel a need to address you formally, this title we shall use.

mnem
Surely, it must wither and die from disuse within a fortnight...

[unitedatoms]

@BravoV. Nice pictures. Japanese used 3D space like this. I feel sorry for size of their land, wish they could have like 10% more or something. Too tight. Even holes are square, and no fan.

[BravoV]

@BravoV. Nice pictures. Japanese used 3D space like this. I feel sorry for size of their land, wish they could have like 10% more or something. Too tight. Even holes are square, and no fan.

Thanks, LOL ... yeah, pity those Japanese. 

Yep, as you can see its quite cramped & packed inside, but I like it as it has no fan at all, so this will minimize mechanical failure in long term, save me have to clean the accumulated dust bunny and no noise at all.

It you watch closely, the case bottom plate also has many bigger square holes too, the air circulation is from the bottom and to the top. Pretty confident Kikusui had toasted them in order to pass their QA and in design stage, its rated to operate in room temp at 0-40 C.

Since you just brought up the holes topic, made me wonder, isn't that making square holes is much more expensive in metal manufacturing process, than just rounded holes ? 

[Cubdriver]

Since you just brought up the holes topic, made me wonder, isn't that making square holes is much more expensive in metal manufacturing process, than just rounded holes ? 

The holes in the chassis are almost certainly punched; perhaps all at once using a custom punch and die set.  It may be somewhat more costly to make the punch/die for square vs round initially, but once the tooling is fabricated then making the holes from that point on (until the tool wears to the point it must be replaced) would essentially be the same cost.   Considering that the square holes give better airflow by permitting more open space than round ones would, from a manufacturing standpoint the square makes sense.

Nice power supply.

-Pat