Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Fart in its general direction. 

mnem
"Always works when I want to create an awkward pause..."

[bitseeker]

Anyway, I may or may not have bought a 3440A nixie tube voltmeter for $30.  It's gone some issues with the mV ranges that I've noted, needs a cal, and the leftmost digit tube is a bit tired; not all digits in that tube fully light it seems. 8 and 2 in particular. But hey, for $30 I can't say no. The tubes by themselves are worth far more and this way they stay in the voltmeter where they belong.  Probably will have to find one extra though.

Nice catch, 0culus. I'd buy that for $30, too. Will you be keeping the price that they so egregiously scribbled onto the front panel?

[0culus]

Anyway, I may or may not have bought a 3440A nixie tube voltmeter for $30.  It's gone some issues with the mV ranges that I've noted, needs a cal, and the leftmost digit tube is a bit tired; not all digits in that tube fully light it seems. 8 and 2 in particular. But hey, for $30 I can't say no. The tubes by themselves are worth far more and this way they stay in the voltmeter where they belong.  Probably will have to find one extra though.

Nice catch, 0culus. I'd buy that for $30, too. Will you be keeping the price that they so egregiously scribbled onto the front panel?

I already removed it, but after the pic. 

Once I get it repaired and in decent cal, I'll put this one to use. Never have too many ways to measure voltage when working on things.

[mnementh]

Nice job with the lamp. That looks excellent. 

As for board: eBay spares/repair "removed from working PC but now untested" $100 

That is one reason I refuse to buy components off eBay. You just don't know. Especially gaming stuff which tends to be owned by the sort of person who rags their hardware hard

I don't really care about how the hardware was used. I care about idiots assembling and disassembling hardware in the worst ways possible. Much more potential for damage, often subtle enough to be a time sink. One good zap is worth hundreds of thousands of hours of load.

Thanks for the props on the lamp.

Naaahhh... CAD$10 for the MB from The Thrift and CAD$25 for the processor off AliEx. I'll get my money's worth from the MB just in components; I knew I was taking a gamble buying a XEON from some random Chinese vendor, but wasn't willing to risk more than that.  I was more than a bit annoyed to find it came wrapped in plain white EPP foam, however. 

I bought my last GPU off eBay... a LNIB Radeon RX580 for US$138 shipped over a year ago now. I snagged it right when the bottom fell out from under GPU mining; I could STILL sell it for a profit.

Seems weird that everything on the DX58S0/XEON acts like it's doing something tho... I plan to tackle it again tomorrow with a fresh mind; look again for something stupid I overlooked.

mnem
*tzzzzt*

And the Plot Thickens...

So after looking again at everything, I dig a little deeper in the dustier corners of Intel's Legacy Product Support section. It appears that the XEON W3670 (last of the Westmere-EP line) is NOT one of the families supported by the DX58S0; It is designed for the Gulftown family, a much smaller derivative of the huge Westmere-EP family that evidently has a different memory controller.

The XEON W3690 IS supported, as it is Gulftown (what was, back in the day, supposed to become the i9 along with the rest of the i7 EXTREME Product line this board was designed for); claims from numerous CPU database sites stating the DX58S0 did support the XEON W3670 are likely either based on hacked firmware mods or somebody's typo on the CPUID (W3670 CPUID=SLBVE, while supported XEON W3565 CPUID=SLBEV). 

TL/DR version: Odds are good that my DX58S0 MB and my XEON W3570 processor both work; just not together thanks to Intel's arcane development process & product naming conventions. 

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/boardsandkits/desktop-boards/DX58SO.pdf

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/codename/29886/gulftown.html

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/codename/54534/westmere-ep.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmere_(microarchitecture)


mnem

[Cubdriver]

Anyway, I may or may not have bought a 3440A nixie tube voltmeter for $30.  It's gone some issues with the mV ranges that I've noted, needs a cal, and the leftmost digit tube is a bit tired; not all digits in that tube fully light it seems. 8 and 2 in particular. But hey, for $30 I can't say no. The tubes by themselves are worth far more and this way they stay in the voltmeter where they belong.  Probably will have to find one extra though.

Nice catch, 0culus. I'd buy that for $30, too. Will you be keeping the price that they so egregiously scribbled onto the front panel?

I already removed it, but after the pic. 

Once I get it repaired and in decent cal, I'll put this one to use. Never have too many ways to measure voltage when working on things.

Definitely a winner.  I use mine regularly to monitor current when reforming caps.



<edit to add - though in this case it looks like I was recharging one of my locked up Makita LiPos>

-Pat

[tggzzz]

Discord in 1 hr !

Can't I sleep a bit more yet 

Drifted into my attention a couple of days ago...

[Specmaster]

Anyone in central UK looking for a really nice small form CRT scope might like to consider this one that just popped up on Shpock https://www.shpock.com/en-gb/i/XlomrK6V9wLgZOYB/gw-gos-310-10mhz-oscilloscope?utm_campaign=User+Alerts&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=alert&utm_source=alert

[AVGresponding]

Just managed to snipe this on fleabay, hope I didn't stand on anyone here's toes...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/hp-HEWLETT-PACKARD-1120A-500-MHz-PROBE-for-OSCILLOSCOPE-SPECTRUM-ANALYZER-/372963394510

[nixiefreqq]

hey oculus

congratulations on the meter.  it looks like a beauty.

a retired buddy of mine worked at a repair depot.  he gave me his stash of nixie (mostly 5245) stuff a couple of years ago. 

as you can see,  there are lots of display boards with tubes intact.

if you post a pic of the board used  in yours (and a close up of the tube in use) i could probably send you some compatible spares.  (swmbo is just gonna' toss all this "rusty dusty useless crap" some day anyhow)

am guessing they are probably 5212 but not sure what pn or series #.

send a pm if you are interested.  (didn't you move since the last time we exchanged addresses?)

ps  ya' can't see it in the pic......but that TI calculator has a bold and proud = key on its bottom right corner (as the calculator gods intended).

[factory]

I seem to remember reading somewhere they used existing display boards when designing the HP 3440A. There are three in my collection but only photos of the inside of one of them, here is a rather crap picture showing the four 5212L-4A display boards used.



Edit; Found a newer one that uses 05212-6016 display boards.


David

[Cubdriver]

The 3440A uses the same tubes as the 5245L.





-Pat

[nixiefreqq]

shots of the 5212 boards in my junk boxes.

[0culus]

hey oculus

congratulations on the meter.  it looks like a beauty.

a retired buddy of mine worked at a repair depot.  he gave me his stash of nixie (mostly 5245) stuff a couple of years ago. 

as you can see,  there are lots of display boards with tubes intact.

if you post a pic of the board used  in yours (and a close up of the tube in use) i could probably send you some compatible spares.  (swmbo is just gonna' toss all this "rusty dusty useless crap" some day anyhow)

am guessing they are probably 5212 but not sure what pn or series #.

send a pm if you are interested.  (didn't you move since the last time we exchanged addresses?)

ps  ya' can't see it in the pic......but that TI calculator has a bold and proud = key on its bottom right corner (as the calculator gods intended).

I'll send you a PM later on today, but here's a pic of the boards:

[nixiefreqq]

hey cub

any ideas about cross compatibility between the different versions of hp nixie display boards?

for sure someone at a depot somewhere had a table for which boards would work in which chassis

(for a short time back in the mid 80's i worked with the depot in san diego responsible for all navy R1051/T827 an/wrc-1 radios.  they bought those radios over a 30 year period and each radio was full of "6 pack" cans that worked in some chassis but not others.  everyone involved had a copy of the compatibility table) 



i have always had enough spares that it was never an issue with hp nixie gear.

[mnementh]

   Anyone in central UK looking for a really nice small form CRT scope might like to consider this one that just popped up on Shpock: https://www.shpock.com/en-gb/i/XlomrK6V9wLgZOYB/gw-gos-310-10mhz-oscilloscope

That looks to be one of the last of the Red-Hot CRTs right there... nice little school lab scope. If it were near me, I'd totally buy it for 40 clams.

mnem
*currently stalking the wild MAME*

[Specmaster]

   Anyone in central UK looking for a really nice small form CRT scope might like to consider this one that just popped up on Shpock: https://www.shpock.com/en-gb/i/XlomrK6V9wLgZOYB/gw-gos-310-10mhz-oscilloscope

That looks to be one of the last of the Red-Hot CRTs right there... nice little school lab scope. If it were near me, I'd totally buy it for 40 clams.

mnem
*currently stalking the wild MAME*

You smooth talking sod, you talked me into totally buying that scope. It looks to be in almost mint condition cosmetically 

[bd139]

Could’ve had my HM307 for some more coin 

[Specmaster]

Just PM'd you about that 

[factory]

hey cub

any ideas about cross compatibility between the different versions of hp nixie display boards?

for sure someone at a depot somewhere had a table for which boards would work in which chassis

(for a short time back in the mid 80's i worked with the depot in san diego responsible for all navy R1051/T827 an/wrc-1 radios.  they bought those radios over a 30 year period and each radio was full of "6 pack" cans that worked in some chassis but not others.  everyone involved had a copy of the compatibility table) 

i have always had enough spares that it was never an issue with hp nixie gear.

Just looking through the manual for the 5245L gives the following, each board has three versions for the various BCD coded output options for interfacing with obsolete digital recorders or computer systems.


Hope this helps.
David

[nixiefreqq]

for anyone who cares.

a 5212L-4A display board will work in an HP3440a otherwise filled with 5212-6016 boards.

closed my eyes and flipped the switch.  it did not blow up, and displayed normally.

(that is my sum total contribution to the compatibility table)

edit  factory added the table from the manual while the freqq was typing.........cool beans!  (rtfm?)

[mnementh]

   Anyone in central UK looking for a really nice small form CRT scope might like to consider this one that just popped up on Shpock: https://www.shpock.com/en-gb/i/XlomrK6V9wLgZOYB/gw-gos-310-10mhz-oscilloscope

That looks to be one of the last of the Red-Hot CRTs right there... nice little school lab scope. If it were near me, I'd totally buy it for 40 clams.

mnem
*currently stalking the wild MAME*

You smooth talking sod, you talked me into totally buying that scope. It looks to be in almost mint condition cosmetically 

You're welcome!!!

mnem
There's a lot of a lot worse ways to blow 40 quid...

[Specmaster]

Yep you're quite right.

What happened to you last night on discord, you were there one minute and then disappeared?

[Cubdriver]

hey cub

any ideas about cross compatibility between the different versions of hp nixie display boards?

for sure someone at a depot somewhere had a table for which boards would work in which chassis

(for a short time back in the mid 80's i worked with the depot in san diego responsible for all navy R1051/T827 an/wrc-1 radios.  they bought those radios over a 30 year period and each radio was full of "6 pack" cans that worked in some chassis but not others.  everyone involved had a copy of the compatibility table) 



i have always had enough spares that it was never an issue with hp nixie gear.

I've never really explored that, but you have piqued my curiosity.  I may ask about boards for one of the counters as I snagged a relatively rarely seen one off the bay a few months ago.  They guy had three, and of course showed a pic of the best equipped one.  I ordered, and got one without the extra two digit option, and of course by then all had sold.  I was annoyed and buried it for later consideration, and forget exactly which one it was, but perhaps it may turn out that you have some boards for it.  Of course I was away when it arrived, and then didn't open it for a few weeks after I got home, so the time frame to bitch on the bay had expired.   

-Pat

[factory]

for anyone who cares.

a 5212L-4A display board will work in an HP3440a otherwise filled with 5212-6016 boards.

closed my eyes and flipped the switch.  it did not blow up, and displayed normally.

(that is my sum total contribution to the compatibility table)

edit  factory added the table from the manual while the freqq was typing.........cool beans!  (rtfm?)

There are a couple more for the later 002/003 options, will update my table later.

David

[0culus]

Sadly, I think the 3444A plug-in is blown up somehow, likely the amplifier based on the service manual troubleshooting procedures. It only works as a voltmeter in the 10,100,1000V ranges. All other ranges and functions appear to be blown.