Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Today my Fluke / Philips PM6681 arrived. Including a nice ring file with the owner's manual and the programmer's manual.

I've powered it on first before I turned it apart. The  vent is a bit loud, perhaps it has some issues with the  bearing.

Back side, lots of dust but no bugs:



Mains input with mains rectifier. No RIFA madness in sight.


Cheers!

Hmm, you might want to check that Schaffner IEC Mains Inlet Filter, because the mains filter might well lurking inside that metal jacket which then becomes a mini pipe bomb.

[bd139]

Agreed.

Those filters are basically three RIFAs and a common mode choke neatly placed inside a pipe bomb just to make you even happier!

[BU508A]

Hmm, you might want to check that Schaffner IEC Mains Inlet Filter, because the mains filter might well lurking inside that metal jacket which then becomes a mini pipe bomb.

Yes, I'm aware of this.    I think, I should have write instead "No RIFA madness in sight so far."

[Cerebus]

I can see we're still bitter that we threw all the tea in the harbor. 

Nope. We're just still amused that you didn't have the sense to empty the tea chests, keep the tea, throw the empty tea chests into the harbour and say they were full. No self-respecting cockney would have missed a trick like that.

Now what makes you think we WANTED the tea? 

You see, missing a trick again! Any crafty Cockney, even if he didn't want the tea would know someone who did. "'ere you are guv. Loverley load of fresh rosie going cheap - yours for 20 sov's. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies".

[Cerebus]

Car battery top-up charging the TEAsman's way.

The 34661A is there to monitor the cable voltage drop because I was too lazy to find the cabling to put the E3616A into 4 wire remote sense mode. Note the kitchen thermometer (purchased on a recommendation in this very forum from Mnem) sitting on the battery for temperature compensation calculation.

[bd139]

That's one reason I use the PL series supplies as they all have remote voltage sense terminals on the front. E36xx is a bit hit and miss with that. I think I've only seen one variant with remote sense and it's on the back, probably E3616A that you have. But it's a pain in the arse

[paullo]

Happy 2nd birthday this thread 

[Cerebus]

Yes, the remote sense in on the back. At least it's little terminal blocks with a sprung lever and not the tag strip type terminals like my 6002A has (which perversely I *have* got set up for 4 wire with proper crimped spade connectors and everything). Like you I much prefer front panel sense connections but it's just happenstance that what's come my way that otherwise fits my sensibilities doesn't have then.

Actually it's frustration with this, and other usability factors, that's prompted me to resurrect, or rather finish working on, a ~60W bench PSU design of my own that I put on hold a year or so back. The rough plan is for a similar overall form factor to the E36xx supplies, front sense, simple reasonably direct controls, high resolution readback, and no bloody fan.

[bd139]

Yes I had a run in with the later 66xx supplies once. Someone neatly wired the rack which I was writing the software test suite for. Due to lack of rack mount kits they piled three of them up on an upside down rack shelf. Then someone complained about the noise coming off the rack so they built a partition around the cabinet literally three inches off the back. The site department wouldn't allow people to move furniture due to H&S to add a missing sense cable. So I got paid to play Solitaire and read Catch 22 for two weeks until they actually bothered to respond to the helpdesk ticket

Edit: some radcom advertisement glory here for TE folk:



I wonder if I should email an appropriate £25 offer for the Thandar box to haul my arse to Fleet for something worth 1/3 of the offering price on a very good day if the wind is behind you 

[WastelandTek]

Did you check date code/serial on the IEC filter to make sure no time-bombs inside?

mnem
*lessons hard-learnt*

pardon me, do you happen to have a link to the list of bad codes on these?

[bd139]

Anything above about 10 years old is pushing it. 20 is probably worth shouting Allāhu akbar before you turn it on.

[BU508A]

Anything above about 10 years old is pushing it. 20 is probably worth shouting Allāhu akbar before you turn it on.

 

[Cerebus]

20 is probably worth shouting Allāhu akbar before you turn it on.

 

Edited to add:

A minute later and I'm still chuckling. 

I've just come back from the kitchen where I had time to wash and chop 5 carrots, three peppers, four spuds, two parsnips and one onion that I'm going to roast for supper and I'm still quietly chuckling.

[BU508A]

Perhaps, bd139 is a ghostwriter for some comedians in the UK.

[Cerebus]

I suspect rather that the response is down to the sick, twisted sense of humour that I know that he, I, Mnem, and now apparently you, share.

[BU508A]

My friends in real life are afraid of my sense of humor.   

[mnementh]

This is a funny bodge, no idea if this was done by Fluke or the previous owner.   

That bodge can only be from the previous owner. Fluke would never have a resistor that old at the time of manufacture. McBryce.

So it wasn't the horrible pigeon-shit soldering, or the ghetto-fab scabbed-together bits of wire on that PCB-mount SMA that tipped you off... it was the Flintstones-era carbon/glue resistor...?  I mean, YEAH; I've seen some some horrible bodges from the MFR... but [FLUKE] would at least pay someone who knows how to solder. 

I can see we're still bitter that we threw all the tea in the harbor. 

Nope. We're just still amused that you didn't have the sense to empty the tea chests, keep the tea, throw the empty tea chests into the harbour and say they were full. No self-respecting cockney would have missed a trick like that.

But it was fucking tea... now if it were coffee, 'nuther story altogether. We'd 'ave drug ship'nall through the streets of Boston by brute force and not stopped until we met the moonshiners in the hills of Vermont. 

mnem

[Cerebus]

But it was fucking tea... now if it were coffee, 'nuther story altogether. We'd 'ave drug ship'nall through the streets of Boston by brute force and not stopped until we met the moonshiners in the hills of Vermont. 

[Fx: Proper pukka Cockney accent] "Listen sunshine, I don't care if it's tea, coffee or bleedin' bilge water. If I can make a bob or two off the back of it, I'm 'avin' it. But not drugs or smut. Me, I draws the line at drugs and smut; fink wot me Nan'd 'ave to say if I got involved with that filth."

[mnementh]

Aye... but that's just how peeved we were. It's not that we didn't THINK of stealing the tea... It was WORTH IT to us just to piss in TheGeorge's cornflakes. Come on... we were New South Wales version 0.1 as far as he was concerned; nothing but religious wingnuts too extreme even for the Pope to ignore, plus a few boatloads of bona-fide father-killers & mother-rapers and mother-killers & father rapers.

Yeah... and unchain that poor unicorn already, its, unseemly

It's a Scottish unicorn and they're a wee bit feisty. They're kept chained (rather like my old wee extremely feisty Scottish mate Lewis ought to be) for everybody's protection. You didn't think that horn was for mere decoration did you? Anything that comes from a cold nation where the men wear skirts with no underwear, that can live on porridge and gargles whiskey should be treated with the same respect one would accord to things like explosives and running chainsaws.

I married that girl. 

At least the early White Aussies did a little Mutiny against Bligh (yes that Bligh) and overthrew the Brits in charge partly to do with Rum  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Rebellion

Early White Aussies? You mean Cockneys and Scousers. Have you ever been in an East End or Toxteth pub at closing time and seen what happens when someone tries to take a Cockney or Scouser's booze away? [ Where's the emoji for cowering behind an upturned table? ] 

But seriously, whoever thought it was a good idea to put Bligh in charge with his history and didn't expect it to blow up in everybody's faces? Nobody nowadays would put a pompous blundering fool who's messed up everything they've ever touched in charge of a country. Oh, hang on...

These come to mind...    
I know, right...? And then after y'all "elected" May, we "elected" Chump...  Then, not to be outdone by the rebel scum in the colonies... BREXIT.      I think that covers the worst of the dumbth up to this point.

mnem

       To TheGeorge with love

[bd139]

But it was fucking tea... now if it were coffee, 'nuther story altogether. We'd 'ave drug ship'nall through the streets of Boston by brute force and not stopped until we met the moonshiners in the hills of Vermont. 

[Fx: Proper pukka Cockney accent] "Listen sunshine, I don't care if it's tea, coffee or bleedin' bilge water. If I can make a bob or two off the back of it, I'm 'avin' it. But not drugs or smut. Me, I draws the line at drugs and smut; fink wot me Nan'd 'ave to say if I got involved with that filth."

I read that in my own voice and it worked

[mnementh]

I still hear everything you say in Luci's voice. 

mnem

[Cerebus]

nothing but religious wingnuts too extreme even for the Pope to ignore, plus a few boatloads of bona-fide father-killers & mother-rapers and mother-killers & father rapers.

I think you're confusing New England with Virginia.

and running chainsaws.

I don't think your edit is necessary, I've had some chainsaws look at me with a vicious side-eyed squint while they're sitting cold on the shelf.

And then after y'all "elected" May,

T'weren't the individual I had in mind. You can call Ms. May many things, but 'buffoon' isn't one that springs to mind, she was all rather too dull for that. Mind you, 'dull' or 'boring' isn't necessarily a bad thing in a politician, it all depends on what it's combined with.

[bd139]

I still hear everything you say in Luci's voice. 

Thanks for the compliment 

Edit: also fuck iOS autocomplete's confusion over complement and compliment!

[Cerebus]

I still hear everything you say in Luci's voice. 

mnem
(Attachment Link)

That's not a nice thing to say about Desi Arnaz's wife!

[mnementh]

Hey... donchoo be knocking Lucy! Without her, we wouldn't have had STAR TREK.
Also, in her time, she was a bona-fide bombshell, and of course the best kind of inconvenient female... a redhead.

mnem
I'll admit it... Lucy was one of my first TV crushes.