Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Anyone here have any experience of a Racal Dana 9082 RF generator at all?

[bd139]

Yes. Damn Large, damn heavy, power supply flakey. Otherwise reasonable. Attenuator is a proper one and it has ALC so you get a decent calibrated power output. Has 9442 OCXO in it. Service manual available:

http://www.ko4bb.com/manuals/82.71.44.42/Racal_9081_9082_Signal_Generator_Maintenance_Manual.pdf

Edit: to note the experience comes from when I skip dived one of these in about 2000 and fixed and sold it and immediately drank the earnings.

Edit: if that’s the one I can see, bag it 

[Ice-Tea]

That's what my recently acquired 575 display looks like. It did have a slight rotation (mostly cured). Most of the problem seems to be the CRT clamp plastic is shattered from age.

So.. not something electronic but rather the display being actually rotated??

Is that you in the Facebook group "Old Tek Scopes" posting the 575 as for sale?

Yup!

[Ice-Tea]

(Attachment Link)

Dug up a PNP transistor, played around a bit and came to two conclusions:

- I have no idea what I'm doing with this thing
- This thing just works, doesn't it?

Ice Tea -

Here's a quickie video I just made showing how to adjust the origin position.  Try this on your curve tracer.  (Mine needs to be gone through - it has some noise on the sweep).



-Pat

Thanks! Will give it a go on Monday. I hope.

[Cerebus]

Third, Do you have the TEA virus? Go read the first page of this thread. Then come back and let us know. New victims..err... fans of all that is test equipment hang out here. 

And finally, show us what you got.

Given the rush of interest in epidemiology on here (cf Covid 19), perhaps we ought to to characterize the TEA virus. What is its R₀, and what is its case fatality ratio? (For fatality, read mortal effects on your bank balance and shelf/storage space). Is marriage an effective vaccine?

[med6753]

Is marriage an effective vaccine?

Sorry, but I'll stay infectious. 

[bd139]

Snap. Only stupid people do something that hurts twice 

Incidentally I’ve sold so much shit now my cupboard is nearly bare. I was planning to clear it out for this seasons hamfests and use the cash there but they’re all cancelled now  . Spendy time. Looking at new power supplies 

[Mortymore]

Please indulge me...

Just woken up. Dreamt I had a Tek 575 last night. Wonder where that dream came from 

And I woke up in the middle of the night, oddly because I sleep like rock, made a cup of tea and sit at the PC to watch the video posted by bitseeker

TEA + time nuttery =

And then something occurred to me, because of the madness the world is facing, the PUBs closing in UK, in particular, and the relativity of time... 

In the past months I came to the TEA group thread and take a look at what's going on here. Believe it or not, when reading all the arguing, opinion making, jokes, fights, helps, show off, lessons... in some occasions I picture you guys as being in a PUB eating peanuts, spilling bear, punching the table, lots of LOL, talking about your passion. That's friendship.

I really loved to see one day, a video on eevblog, with Dave Jones gathering in his lab with your group of TEA nuts.

Thank you all for this reading moments, mostly at the end of a working day.

Never lose the spirit.   

(Sorry for editing, but my grammar fails me often)

[med6753]

That's what my recently acquired 575 display looks like. It did have a slight rotation (mostly cured). Most of the problem seems to be the CRT clamp plastic is shattered from age.

So.. not something electronic but rather the display being actually rotated??

Is that you in the Facebook group "Old Tek Scopes" posting the 575 as for sale?

Yup!

Scroll down to the 535A post dated February 26. 

[McBryce]

Third, Do you have the TEA virus? Go read the first page of this thread. Then come back and let us know. New victims..err... fans of all that is test equipment hang out here. 

And finally, show us what you got.

Given the rush of interest in epidemiology on here (cf Covid 19), perhaps we ought to to characterize the TEA virus. What is its R₀, and what is its case fatality ratio? (For fatality, read mortal effects on your bank balance and shelf/storage space). Is marriage an effective vaccine?

The marriage cure is just an urban myth. The TEA virus finds ways around that pretty quickly. Although it depends on what strain you have Tek-TEA struggles with marriage, Fluke-TEA on the other hand continues flourishing despite marriage.

McBryce.

[Specmaster]

Snap. Only stupid people do something that hurts twice 

Incidentally I’ve sold so much shit now my cupboard is nearly bare. I was planning to clear it out for this seasons hamfests and use the cash there but they’re all cancelled now  . Spendy time. Looking at new power supplies 

In that case then, I'm guilty as charged me Lord! 

[med6753]

Third, Do you have the TEA virus? Go read the first page of this thread. Then come back and let us know. New victims..err... fans of all that is test equipment hang out here. 

And finally, show us what you got.

Given the rush of interest in epidemiology on here (cf Covid 19), perhaps we ought to to characterize the TEA virus. What is its R₀, and what is its case fatality ratio? (For fatality, read mortal effects on your bank balance and shelf/storage space). Is marriage an effective vaccine?

The marriage cure is just an urban myth. The TEA virus finds ways around that pretty quickly. Although it depends on what strain you have Tek-TEA struggles with marriage, Fluke-TEA on the other hand continues flourishing despite marriage.

McBryce.

Since I'm infected with both strains I am an absolutely hopeless cause and loving every minute of it. 

[Cerebus]

in some occasions I picture you guys as being in a PUB eating peanuts, spilling bear, punching the table, lots of LOL, talking about you passion. That's friendship.

Med's the one tipping blue food colouring into his pint, BD's seeing if he can still pick up the peanuts with his feet, Mnem's roasting the peanuts while fluttering his eyelashes at the redhead behind the bar, Bean's arguing with the barman as to why what turned up when he ordered a coffee isn't in fact coffee, and me, I'm probably under the table (with Phil if he's been on the killer snakebites).

[Cerebus]

OK, now formally set up for the siege. TEA development supplies are now all here:



and I have brain food for the duration too (as long as 'the duration' isn't too long):

[AVGresponding]

No more snakebite this week, Sainsbury's didn't have any vintage cider   

So it's vodka with variously coke, lime juice + ginger ale, lime juice + bitter lemon.

Advance warning: avatar and forum nickname changes incoming...

[med6753]

And here I sit. I should be doing something....like ripping down the Tek 2430 and replacing the NVRAM battery. But I've suddenly developed the urge to do....nothing. 

Maybe I'll go take a walk later after it warms up. Or fire up the amps and annoy the neighbors with some vintage Floyd.

I will definitely be on Discord later. 

[capt bullshot]

OK, now formally set up for the siege. TEA development supplies are now all here:

That nucleo board looks like there's a ST-Link V3 onboard, though the package states V2.1
Somewhere I've got such kind of Lattice board lurking around for some years. Was annoyed by the 1-year "free" licensing stuff for the Lattice Diamond IDE and lost my fizz on it.

[tggzzz]

Lost 4kg in weight in the last 6 days though so something was up and it wasn’t for lack of eating 

That is a lot. Perhaps fluid intake/outtake - is your pee straw coloured? Or since you are a young Londoner, chardonnay coloured?

[Cerebus]

OK, now formally set up for the siege. TEA development supplies are now all here:

That nucleo board looks like there's a ST-Link V3 onboard, though the package states V2.1
Somewhere I've got such kind of Lattice board lurking around for some years. Was annoyed by the 1-year "free" licensing stuff for the Lattice Diamond IDE and lost my fizz on it.

Yeah, there's actually two Nucleo-64 boards kicking about on my desk at the moment and after checking that I could "get to blinky" on both I put the wrong one away, in the 'right' box (for the one I meant to put away). So that's a G474 board in an F411 box. Now swapped - I'm glad you spotted that as I would have probably had 20 minutes later in the day working out why some code built for the G474 wasn't running on the F411.

Never had any problems with Lattice licensing. It's pretty nominal and you can get a new free license online in seconds pretty much any time. I think that the only reason you need a license key is that they bundle Synplify and I suspect that they need the license keys to keep Synopsys happy.

[Cerebus]

Lost 4kg in weight in the last 6 days though so something was up and it wasn’t for lack of eating 

That is a lot. Perhaps fluid intake/outtake - is your pee straw coloured? Or since you are a young Londoner, chardonnay coloured?

I think the 'young' is just relative from your lofty heights of sagacity and wisdom, and I think BD's more probably 'lager' than 'Chardonnay'. 

[bd139]

Actually no alcohol intake this week other than 1/3 of a can of Abbots. The rest went in a stew. Urine is, and apologies for this, rancid tango. I drink 2L of water a day as well so it's clearly kicking something out. The engineer in me keeps a spreadsheet of course:



Grey line = obesity ... Yellow line = healthy weight. Orange line = target path. Blue line = measured path.

Has levelled out today but only one data point. It would suggest that I have been sick though! Will eat to hit the target path again.

Edit: just received Maxim MAX30100 pulse oximeter module today. Will have some fun with that once I've got these displays up

Edit: just checked my 7 day average calorie intake is ~1400 calories/day so need to eat a lot more this week. HOLD MY BEER  (checking if GBK deliver still )

[capt bullshot]

Yeah, there's actually two Nucleo-64 boards kicking about on my desk at the moment and after checking that I could "get to blinky" on both I put the wrong one away, in the 'right' box (for the one I meant to put away). So that's a G474 board in an F411 box. Now swapped - I'm glad you spotted that as I would have probably had 20 minutes later in the day working out why some code built for the G474 wasn't running on the F411.

Usually your debugger (like openocd) sorts that out, won't flash the wrong MCU.

Never had any problems with Lattice licensing. It's pretty nominal and you can get a new free license online in seconds pretty much any time. I think that the only reason you need a license key is that they bundle Synplify and I suspect that they need the license keys to keep Synopsys happy.

Yes, that's what I was told by someone I don't remember, and of course assured that re-licensing will always be possible. I simply don't like the idea of "cannot modify or re-use my old project because of license issues", so I turned away from that one, though it was interesting technically. If I'm not forced to do otherwise, I don't use tools that might stop working at will of somebody else.

[AVGresponding]

Well, idk what the previous owner was using these tips for, but they just won't re-tin.

And the answer is yes, I've tried that (unless you come up with something I never heard of before).

Looks like I need to buy a selection of new ones   


EDIT: Two for the US folks: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HeathKit-Capaci-Tester-Model-IT-22/184212372434
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Heathkit-Capaci-Tester-Intermittent-Capacity-Capacitor-CT-1-Powers-On/353012025141

[bd139]

Just buy one. That’s all you need. As mentioned I’ve had mine two years and the tip that came with it is pretty good for everything.

[AVGresponding]

Just buy one. That’s all you need. As mentioned I’ve had mine two years and the tip that came with it is pretty good for everything.

The reason I didn't have any of that stinky tip cleaner/tinner is because I never fucked a tip in my life. The tip on my W60D is 25 years old, and if I hadn't broken the damn barrel trying to get the tip nut off I'd still be using it.

I do want a couple of sizes. I know people dis the conical tips but I like them and never had a problem using them.
So I do want a nice fine conical tip, but also a bigger chisel tip for heavier duty jobs that aren't quite big enough for me to use the 200W gun.