Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[URI]

That’s the headset I use. They are very nice. 

You haven't used it in the last two teatime discord-chats. When will you?   

[bd139]

I did a while back. Last week I was unscrewing stuff at work. Week before I’d spent the entire damn week on the phone so wasn’t feeling particularly sociable. I will make more of an effort 

[tggzzz]

Would someone from Pommie TEA like to drop around and insert a High Voltage across this butchers frontal lobes  https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/stuartiles/m.html?item=174198831839&hash=item288f0f3adf%3Ag%3AY18AAOSwcuNeUOLc&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

In which case you'll love this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AVO-multimeter-with-Broad-Arrow-working-lamp/153864968056

No, I am not going to cycle over and kneecap him since the second picture shows a glimmer of imagination and humour.

[bd139]

I can’t say any major loss there 

(Not a fan of avos)

[beanflying]

AVO meters which there are a huge number of are one thing but butchering Museum grade specialist gear is another  I shudder to think that HP Nixie counter I was second banana on last night is heading for two clocks at the hands of a moron

What is the London version of the Glasgow/Liverpool Kiss 

[bd139]

We don’t piss around down here. Cheffed up instantly. 

(Stabbed, shanked etc)

Edit: I have to admit I’m guilty for parting out gear occasionally for cash but only when it is thoroughly beyond repair with multiple issues and quite common hardware.

[med6753]

While you were editing your post to explain "cheffed" I was googling it.

[FransW]

I just bought this. 
I need a drink. 

from https://xdevs.com/article/f8505a/

6 ppm accuracy on the 10 V range, 5ppm with averaging. Not bad at all for something this old.

[Specmaster]

On the Bench Tonight...



Plantronics CM-310 Conference Headset Like New & NIB Fuji FinePix C10 Camera:

I should've known Murphy would come along & make me pay for riding Spec's arse about the headphone he got; today I found this ~$50 Plantronics conference headset for CAD$7. Of course I snagged it; I knew the quality would be there and when I have family present, I prefer the one-ear type anyways. The inline dongle is a PITA already; but it is light and it is hardwired so I don't have to worry about it pulling apart and related crackle/static.

Windows installs it pretty much instantly with signed drivers; controls on the dongle are CALL Hang Up/Answer with green indicator LED, Mic Mute with Red LED that indicates muted, and Headset Volume that is dedicated to the headset, not to Windows audio volume. I REALLY like that.

Single earphone sound quality is exactly what you'd expect from Plantronics; crisp and clear in the typical telephony voice frequency range, but very little real bass or treble. Microphone is excellent and sensitive by default; I need to poke around my junk drawer for a foam windscreen as it does pick up my breathing. The mic boom is rubberized with a bendable metal strip inside so it can be molded to suit your face; by default it fits very close against the headband just as I like. The single-sided headband is also just as you'd expect from Plantronics; easy to adjust, firm hold and "forget you have it on" comfortable. 

I've tested it in the Discord settings and it seems quite decent, though the Answer/Hang Up Call button DOES NOT work as I expected; it probably needs the Plantronics UI software installed to be able to assign those buttons. One thing I DID note is that the mic has a "Roger Beep" that DOES toggle voice activation on Discord reliably; this might be a boon for when I'm M/Ting and noodling around in other tabs while visiting y'all.

Worst case, even if I can't get used to that bump-in-the-wire dongle, I'll give it to the boi to use for his French lessons on Rosetta Stone and take my Labtec mic back. 

As for the Fuji Camera... ehhh, it's brand-new in box, camera still in its sealed baggie. It's at least 5 years newer than any other camera I own, and 10 MP with a proper 3x optical zoom. I figure even if I just save it to give someone who needs a camera, it's a bargain; less than $6 US.

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

Karma is a bitch aint she 

That looks like a good headset, well it must be if bd endorses it. I also have its close cousin, BT one by BlueNext, no inline dongle obviously but discord will not reliably see it. One day it will work when it feels like it and another it won't, but it works perfectly on Audacity and of course, what I got it for when I was working from home, Bluetoothing to my mobile as I the technical support engineer for my company and constantly on the phone all day long. Now if only I could it working correctly with discord, maybe discord is not geared up for Bluetooth? 

[Specmaster]

A little HP 3478A slightly crusty but the shipping to Oz is not to bad eBay auction: #402165310223

I think I hate you just a little bit more, now.

  I've put in an offer (even though the exchange rate is crap). 

You are welcome 

They are a great meter, and are fairly easy to self calibrate and the service manual gives full instructions on how do that. Just sold mine to make way for 6.5 digits.

[Brumby]

5.5 digits, 4 wire, bench meter at a price that may not be too excruciating.  Will see what the response is to my offer.

[mnementh]

On the Bench Tonight...      Plantronics CM-310 Conference Headset...

I should've known Murphy would come along & make me pay for riding Spec's arse about the headphone he got; today I found this ~$50 Plantronics conference headset for CAD$7. Of course I snagged it; I knew the quality would be there and when I have family present, I prefer the one-ear type anyways. The inline dongle is a PITA already; but it is light and it is hardwired so I don't have to worry about it pulling apart and related crackle/static.

Windows installs it pretty much instantly with signed drivers; controls on the dongle are CALL Hang Up/Answer with green indicator LED, Mic Mute with Red LED that indicates muted, and Headset Volume that is dedicated to the headset, not to Windows audio volume. I REALLY like that. (SNIP)

Karma is a bitch aint she 

That looks like a good headset, well it must be if bd endorses it. I also have its close cousin, BT one by BlueNext, no inline dongle obviously but discord will not reliably see it. One day it will work when it feels like it and another it won't, but it works perfectly on Audacity and of course, what I got it for when I was working from home, Bluetoothing to my mobile as I the technical support engineer for my company and constantly on the phone all day long. Now if only I could it working correctly with discord, maybe discord is not geared up for Bluetooth? 

If it's made for teleconferencing use, it probably has a configuration/UI app like this one (which I'm not using). Maybe try finding that. Or it may be the generic BT stack Windoze installs; again, using the MFR software may cure that. It may also be some "persistent connection" issue with your config in Audacity; I've had problems before with certain apps not "releasing" the BT connection for use with other apps, particularly if it has a TSR component like a button in the SysTray. 

mnem

[nixiefreqq]

Yeah the entire world's airline sector is damn near shut down, makes you wonder...

In any case as I said to the vendor, I've tons of patience, and it gives me time to build a psu for it (no I'm not buying an HP scope just to plug it in     ).


I'm leaning towards that "connecting to 0 volts" being a troll, it looks a lot like he's trying to get someone to flame him...

@med6753, I used to have one of those myself, good meters but boy, what a boat anchor. Be prepared to surrender a reasonable amount real estate on your bench for this bad boy.  I can get almost all 3 of my 6.5digit meters on the same footprint as that takes up. Do you know what options it comes with? IIRC it has about 8 plug-in cards and I think that the AC V and AC I and the Ohms are options that may not be present and could be difficult to come across.

Yea, I know it's big. I think I have a spot for it after I jockey some stuff around.

It has the Ohms option and the AC RMS option. Don't care about current.

If you brought that Fluke Calibrator too you could use it as a floor stand for the DMM (Attachment Link)  

And also wreck himself moving it!

Oh come on ya buncha wusses, it's not THAT heavy!!




 

-Pat

holy shitballs!   almost 80 lbs!

my flabby old ass stopped pumping iron 20 years ago.  my former massive meaningless muscle mass has atrophied to almost nothing.

lifting that mf'er would send me straight into molecular dislocation.

BUT its brother up in williamsport still has no offers with 1 day and 3 hours to go.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fluke-760A-Meter-Calibrator-Metrology-Electronic-Testing-Device/352999790447?hash=item52306d576f:g:mVEAAOSwnAJeMa7K

tomorrow would be a nice day for a drive up the river.  (did go as far as sunbury once to pick up an hp 54601).

but then there is this:

from the office of the honorable governor thomas wolf......

"Freedom of travel will remain, but all Pennsylvanians are asked to refrain from non-essential travel."

would you want me to defy the state itself? 

[AVGresponding]

holy shitballs!   almost 80 lbs!

my flabby old ass stopped pumping iron 20 years ago.  my former massive meaningless muscle mass has atrophied to almost nothing.

lifting that mf'er would send me straight into molecular dislocation.

BUT its brother up in williamsport still has no offers with 1 day and 3 hours to go.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fluke-760A-Meter-Calibrator-Metrology-Electronic-Testing-Device/352999790447?hash=item52306d576f:g:mVEAAOSwnAJeMa7K

tomorrow would be a nice day for a drive up the river.  (did go as far as sunbury once to pick up an hp 54601).

but then there is this:

from the office of the honorable governor thomas wolf......

"Freedom of travel will remain, but all Pennsylvanians are asked to refrain from non-essential travel."

would you want me to defy the state itself?

From the point of view of a Brit, Pennsylvanians and all other US citizens are primarily known for NOT obeying the state...

You just need to turn up with 2 or 3 suitably attired minions (masks, gloves, disposable paper suits), put a biohazard sticker on the beast, and then remove it, free of charge, for the protection of the vendor...

[bd139]

That’s a medium sized child that. No problems. And it doesn’t wiggle.

Edit: just realised how dodgy that sounded 

[mnementh]

mnem
Whaaaaat...?   

[mnementh]

holy shitballs!   almost 80 lbs!

my flabby old ass stopped pumping iron 20 years ago.  my former massive meaningless muscle mass has atrophied to almost nothing.

lifting that mf'er would send me straight into molecular dislocation.

BUT its brother up in williamsport still has no offers with 1 day and 3 hours to go.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fluke-760A-Meter-Calibrator-Metrology-Electronic-Testing-Device/352999790447?hash=item52306d576f:g:mVEAAOSwnAJeMa7K

tomorrow would be a nice day for a drive up the river.  (did go as far as sunbury once to pick up an hp 54601).

but then there is this:

from the office of the honorable governor thomas wolf......

"Freedom of travel will remain, but all Pennsylvanians are asked to refrain from non-essential travel."

would you want me to defy the state itself?

From the point of view of a Brit, Pennsylvanians and all other US citizens are primarily known for NOT obeying the state...

You just need to turn up with 2 or 3 suitably attired minions (masks, gloves, disposable paper suits), put a biohazard sticker on the beast, and then remove it, free of charge, for the protection of the vendor...

If this doesn't qualify as essential travel... nothing does!!! 

 


I don't know about needing 3 minions... I think ONE Kevin should do nicely.

mnem

[AVGresponding]

EDIT: Won the AMD V5900 on my maiden bid, though not quite in mnementh-jamminess territory in terms of price. Ordered a dp > hdmi adaptor from a UK seller on ebay, the race is now on to see which arrives first!

https://www.amazon.com/ATI-FirePro-V5900-2DisplayPort-PCI-Express/dp/B00535CDXO/

One of these...? Hope you didn't pay much for it; they're a 9-year-old dinosaur of a card.    Like approx 10% the compute power of a RADEON RX580. IIRC, the reference design doesn't even have DisplayPort; only a single Dual-link DVI, so DirectX 11.something and DisplayPort 1.2 at best.

Well my dinosaur arrived today, so it won the race.
As soon as the dp > hdmi adaptor arrives I'll swap it in and we'll see if it helps with my resolution conflicts... probably not but it never hurts to have a spare gpu...   

[Specmaster]

I can’t say any major loss there 

(Not a fan of avos)

What  they are the Rolls Royce of analogue meters, pick up almost any service manual for electronic gear of their era and the Avo @ 20,000opv will listed as the meter used in the measurement of any values. Yes their accuracy may only around 3% but back in their day that was the benchmark of a lab grade meter FFS. And er, no I won't be doing a drop test between a modern day digital meter and the Avo, its the same as drop testing a CRO vs DSO 

Edit. Just toddling off a few minutes to check on my bread baking 

Edit 2: I just won myself a AF/RF signal tracer, needs a bit of work though. 

[Cerebus]

AVO meters which there are a huge number of are one thing but butchering Museum grade specialist gear is another  I shudder to think that HP Nixie counter I was second banana on last night is heading for two clocks at the hands of a moron

What is the London version of the Glasgow/Liverpool Kiss 

There isn't one. The Stepney Salute? The Newham Nod? The Hackney Handshake? The Bow Bow? (1st pronounced as in "put a bow on it", second as in "bow to the queen") The Bromley Bow? The Greenwich Grin? The Streatham Two-step? The Finsbury Foxtrot? The Edmonton 'ello? The Croydon Clap? The Acton 'andshake? [That's enough - ed]

Londoners are surprisingly unlikely to come to actual blows. Most altercations are sorted out by a tacit understanding as to who would have actually won had it come to blows. Obviously, once down the pub both parties will claim to have been the victor.

The only people I have had to get physical with in my adult life have been foreigners. I tell a lie, there was one occasion where about ten of us physically arrested about twenty feral local youths after a gig, but that was more literal collar feeling than a proper punch-up.

[med6753]

Today's project and while not strictly TE it is related. Re-cap of this Radio Shack PRO-2037 Scanner. I've had this unit since about 1996 and it has never given me any trouble and it is powered on almost continuously. So I think it would be prudent to do a re-cap.

The unit below it is a battery backup I designed and built. In case of a power failure it automatically switches to battery power. When power is restored it switches back without any manual intervention.



Here's the underside of the main board. Discovered that a few of the capacitors are obstructed by those shields so I'll have to forego changing them out. But I was mainly interested in the large value capacitors in the power supply and those were accessible.



Main board completed and reinstalled. The scanner came back up with no issues. All I had to do was reprogram all the monitored frequencies.   




Other news.....the Fluke 8505A shipped this morning and is coming FedEx. The seller is on Long Island so there is the possibility that I could get it as soon as tomorrow. But Thursday is probably more likely.

And Phil.....your HP probes shipped too this morning. No arrival date yet.

[grizewald]

Today's project and while not strictly TE it is related. Re-cap of this Radio Shack PRO-2037 Scanner. I've had this unit since about 1996 and it has never given me any trouble and it is powered on almost continuously. So I think it would be prudent to do a re-cap.

Out of interest, did you check any of the removed capacitors to see if your prudence was justified?

[med6753]

Today's project and while not strictly TE it is related. Re-cap of this Radio Shack PRO-2037 Scanner. I've had this unit since about 1996 and it has never given me any trouble and it is powered on almost continuously. So I think it would be prudent to do a re-cap.

Out of interest, did you check any of the removed capacitors to see if your prudence was justified?

Nope, just did a slash and burn.

[bd139]

If med doesn't replace capacitors in something once a month he'll probably go shoot up a school or something 

[AVGresponding]

I miss RadioShack/Tandy, that's where my first real forays into the world of electronics started   

Their products were a bit hit and miss; I had an Archer butane soldering iron, and though it did well for a few years, it was very temperamental, and ultimately the catalyst bits were a bit expensive and eventually unavailable.

I still have my Minimus 7s as part of my main audio setup, I bought them in 1989 and I love them, my Micronta 22-195 DMM was my pride and joy for years, and still maintains its specs more than 20 years later.

Also still have a Realistic Lab 407 turntable, though I've not used it in years. Uses Audio Technica P-mount cartridges and sounds pretty good considering the cost, though if I start listening to my vinyl again I think I'll hunt down a Technics linear tracking unit. I know they aren't the audiophile choice but I like the direct track access feature, and they're certainly good enough to go with the rest of my hifi stuff.