Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[MiDi]

Nice 100W System PSU HP 6632A 20V 5A arrived:



Teardown & MODs are put into separate Thread.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Especially out in Essex. 

Random question. DC clamp meters good to 40A. Any suggestions? Got something I need to measure that I don’t want to disconnect.

Edit: don’t expect something expensive as this is a one shot measurement

I beg to differ, as aleays in those choices. My baseline would be the Beha-Amprobe CHB35-D.
If you could wait some, a used Fluke/LEM/Metrawatt... would most certainly not be sooo far away.

But there is a alternative. That would be one of the adaptors. Two things make it worth considering:
1 Failure rates of displays etc., which are duplicated.
2 The capabilities of your multimeter(s)

Anything beyond the Fluke 87 offers multiple detection functions, offset etc. Definitely useful with a hall clamp. One of the older Fluke, can't find the designation: angled & slightly gun-shaped, was an exceptional sturdy and reliable thing. And some of them are fine to use with a scope too.

I guess it shows that was associated with power electronics frequently. Those are what I have besides a Tek AM503-A6301:
MX1200S   ITT Metrix   AC/DC Clamp Ammeter, 1000A   (RMS, CosPhi, Output, 3ph. adaptor)
Unitest 93425   Ch. Beha      AC/DC Clamp Ammeter, 0..200/600A   (RMS)   
AC/DC Hall Clamp, 100kHz; 30A   PR30   LEM HEME   BNC output      
AC/DC Hall Clamp, 30kHz; 40/400A   PR430   LEM HEME   BNC output
AC/DC Hall Clamp, tbd kHz; 100/600A   AM600   ITT Metrix   4mm output, 10mV/A, 1mV/A

The 93425 is with me more than 20years now and still working fine.

[Neomys Sapiens]

And, no, don't let him get that pole up. Have you lot forgotten what happened last time?

      

Whaaaat...? I just had a few friends over...     

mnem
Fine. I'll just sit in the corner here and count my scales... *humph*

If I ever found it hard to explain the sudden upsurge of anti-reptilian parties, no more.

[nixiefreqq]

Yeah that’s #1 contender at the moment. Or the second hand fluke 325 on eBay at the moment 

do i get a vote?

if so......uni-t 210e.

cost less than taking swmbo out to the local diner.....and it gets used all the time.


while we have your attention.  whats the deal with essex?  is it actually below sea level or something?

(our only context for things uk is doc martin, one foot in the grave, mr bean, and men behaving badly.  red dwarf was no help at all)

Not to mention no risk to your Lightweight non Fluke Calibrator lifting back (Attachment Link)

The 210E @bd139 stacks up very well against my 34401A (fairly sucky on current) for DC current and not to bad against my recent good quality shunts.

back in my days of overdeveloped meaningless muscle mass they called me king of the dumb bells.  ahhhhh.  4 sets/10 reps each of bent over rows with 90 lb dummies.   curls (no cheat honest curls without swinging) with 65 or 70 lbs in each hand.  upright military presses with 85 or 90 lb bells (you do worry about clunking yourself in the coconut as you approach molecular dislocation).  barbells are for pussies.  machines?  don't even talk to me about machines.

never worried about lifting bulky TE in those days.  alas......am now old and feeble.   

little girls and old ladies could whoop me now.   

[Specmaster]

Yeah that’s #1 contender at the moment. Or the second hand fluke 325 on eBay at the moment 

do i get a vote?

if so......uni-t 210e.

cost less than taking swmbo out to the local diner.....and it gets used all the time.


while we have your attention.  whats the deal with essex?  is it actually below sea level or something?

(our only context for things uk is doc martin, one foot in the grave, mr bean, and men behaving badly.  red dwarf was no help at all)

Not to mention no risk to your Lightweight non Fluke Calibrator lifting back (Attachment Link)

The 210E @bd139 stacks up very well against my 34401A (fairly sucky on current) for DC current and not to bad against my recent good quality shunts.

back in my days of overdeveloped meaningless muscle mass they called me king of the dumb bells.  ahhhhh.  4 sets/10 reps each of bent over rows with 90 lb dummies.   curls (no cheat honest curls without swinging) with 65 or 70 lbs in each hand.  upright military presses with 85 or 90 lb bells (you do worry about clunking yourself in the coconut as you approach molecular dislocation).  barbells are for pussies.  machines?  don't even talk to me about machines.

never worried about lifting bulky TE in those days.  alas......am now old and feeble.   

little girls and old ladies could whoop me now.   

That is something that these young whipper-snappers while find out in due course. I remember how I used to tease my mum when I was a few years younger, and she used to tell me, "you wait till you get in your seventies sonny Jim and see how many things you can still do that you did  in your fifties". How I laughed, I'm not laughing any more, she was right, and I was wrong 

[AVGresponding]

Not sure about the large cap in the power supply section but it does seem to be blown slightly to me in the photo.

That's what it looks like to me too; my 8840 had a similarly domed reservoir cap, and it did test a bit high on capacitance and esr, when I'd swapped it out.

Yes, that 15000uf capacitor does not look too healthy. I've already inventoried the replacement caps required and the order will be submitted. And from studying the mechanical parts diagrams it appears the entire PSU pulls out from the back which should make the work a lot easier.

That is probably just a piece of plastic that was slightly too big in the first place, just push it and it will go down.

Nope, you can clearly feel a pressure build-up when you squish it. It's the feel of gas pressure, not plastic springiness.

@bd139 my Mastech 2108A was pretty cheap, and matches a home made 1% shunt for accuracy, and has 40 and 400 amp ranges.


EDIT: Had a little think about how to best describe the difference in feel between gas pressure and a plastic springiness.

In this case, the shape of the plastic is what gave me the clue. It would act as a diaphragm spring, which has a very distinctive feel due to it's reduced compression gradient once past the knee.

[mansaxel]

Package has done a mnem, and escaped Texas. Now in Tennessee.

Fedex normally put my Mouser deliveries in my hand no later than two working days after they escape Texas. It'll be interesting to hear when yours does actually turn up.

Status right now is "bouncing around in Memphis".

Shipment is in Roissy. That was fast. But la Métropole still isn't Sweden.

Edit: I think it's onboard a 777 that at the time of typing this is airborne west of Bastogne en route Köln.

Undo that: Still in Roissy.

[Brumby]

I've been a little antsy about the progress (or lack of) of my 3478A.  It has been a while since I last brought something in from the States, but the wait feels interminable.

No doubt this is a function of the increased visibility available these days through tracking events and the greater interest I have in this shipment than I have had for some time .... plus the Covid-19 factor just puts an edge on things as well.


I need a local distraction.

[beanflying]

Are you really really sure you want 'assistance' on that front    eBay auction: #153875319736

Warning Fluke Turtle shot  



Good time to get into some playing with Fusion 360 and get in some 3D printing time of things of random 

Todays random is a new mitre guide for my disc sander the stock one was horrid and not vertical or accurate. Going with Laser cut Acrylic in this case but could have been printed too.

[Brumby]

Says "Pickup only".  Don't think interstate travel would go down well with anyone right now.

I knew I shouldn't have shaken that tree.   


(try harder  )

[beanflying]

Says "Pickup only".  Don't think interstate travel would go down well with anyone right now.

I knew I shouldn't have shaken that tree.   

(try harder  )

Depending on an offer being accepted for this from the same seller eBay auction: #153861827598 shipping could be assisted with on the Fluke fuggly 

[Brumby]

The sad fact is that I have limited space and I need to be selective in what I get - and this unit doesn't provide me with much in the way of features unique enough to justify such an acquisition.  I have enough stuff I don't use all that often (some for a few years) and I'm getting cautious of adding to that collection.

Still, I did look more than once  twice thrice^**.   


^** Yes - I hate you.

[mansaxel]

Shipment is in Roissy. That was fast. But la Métropole still isn't Sweden.

Edit: I think it's onboard a 777 that at the time of typing this is airborne west of Bastogne en route Köln.

Undo that: Still in Roissy.

Aaaand it's in Stockholm. Update when I've got it.

Readers of "The story of O" will be quite familiar with what you'd do in Roissy overnight. This all makes sense now.

/M, gutter-memory.

[Saskia]

NAS reorganized, waiting for the 2nd RMA to be processed to finally receive the replacement for the 2nd HGST DOA drive ...
*hrmpf*, they are searching for the drive in their returns warehouse ...

but anyway. Couple of terabytes reorganized, write speed of the NAS has topped at 538 MBytes/s, which is barely acceptable.
Hubby brought home an UV mail disinfection unit (repurposed UV exposure unit for photosensitive PCBs). Will have a look at it later today.

Does anybody know the HEPA rating of Dyson Pure Cool Link TP04 units ? I have 2 sitting here, and one needs maintenance.

These things are supposed to help me with my allergies, but should come in handy these days ...

[grizewald]

Shipment is in Roissy. That was fast. But la Métropole still isn't Sweden.

Edit: I think it's onboard a 777 that at the time of typing this is airborne west of Bastogne en route Köln.

Undo that: Still in Roissy.

Aaaand it's in Stockholm. Update when I've got it.

Readers of "The story of O" will be quite familiar with what you'd do in Roissy overnight. This all makes sense now.

/M, gutter-memory.

Excellent, thanks for the updates. It sounds like it's "business as usual" for Mouser and FedEx then.

Time to place my own order.

[grizewald]

I ordered up a bunch of fans to quiet down the 3DP; chose 12V ones as they were in-stock on Amazon & 1/3-1/2 the price of equivalent 24V ones via slow-boat-from China. I WAS just going to epoxy-blob a L78M12 on each fan as I've done oodles of times before... takes about 5 minutes and I have oodles. Now you got me building a BOM with one of these, JST-PH pigtails, and even considering a perfboard with jumper blocks to go inline with the controller board so I can easily switch devices in/out of circuit as the configuration evolves.

mnem
I hate you all. Cordially.

Best way to silence your 3D printer:



Fanless industrial power supplies from Mean well.

[bd139]

Neat installation that. Completely overkill but neat 

[med6753]

Venturing out this morning for the "old farts only" 6 AM to 7 AM shopping hour at local grocery. I have no idea what is or isn't in stock but I guess I'll find out. 

Full report when I get back.   

[Ero-Shan]

Moved a few weeks ago, now I've got some extra space so the home lab gets to stretch its legs.

I'm a little late, but:
You've got a great bench there!   
I wish I had so much space and wouldn't have to use the high ceiling in my apartment.
There's only one thing better than bench space: even more bench space.   

Not just the bench is huge! The room behind seems to extend indefinitely.
But then, there's people with less space than me, so I might as well be happy with what I've got.

And if I wouldn't collect all the useless TE stuff I'd have much more space available.

[syau]

Those module were well known not fitted with original LM2956 and the common failure mode is short circuit the Vout to Vin 

[bd139]

LM317 failure mode (back to original thread) 

[med6753]

LM317 failure mode (back to original thread) 

I finally figured it out. Gorillas = Engineers.   

And here it was staring me in the face this whole time. 

[bd139]

Bingo 

Better than crap slinging monkeys (programmers) 

[tautech]

Now the mad panic before the NZ shutdown is over......time to play with recent acquisitions. 
And get back on topic ! 

Nabbed an early B'day pressie for yours truly.
Couldn't resist......current probes are a sickness weakness. 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/362914149137

And it arrived today. 
Thanks Bill in NC for forwarding it on.

Does it anywhere meet the Tek risetime spec of ≤5.8 ns ?
1 MHz square wave 10Vp-p into 50 Ohms current test....nutthing too challenging....


And some ripple heaven 


So while everything is set up just 2 more current probes to check as providing somewhat similar results.

Well that ^^^ was a right proper cock up ! 

When you have that little nagging thought you've done something wrong and checks with the other Tek current probes show what a dumb f**k mistook you've made ! 

It's easy to get the current probe attenuation quite wrong when you don't have a calibrated pulse to set them up with. 

So for reference here they are:
Using their respective passive terminations and termination attenuation settings followed by scope input settings.

Tek P6021 60 MHz current probe                      Tek P6022 100 MHz current probe
 2mA/mV setting = 0.5V/A                                      1mV/mA setting = 1V/A 
10mA/mV setting = 0.1V/A                                    10mA/mV setting = 0.1V/A

Further confirmation these settings should give the correct current value is the square wave source SDG6022X is capable of 200mA output and although the overshoots are a good bit over the cursors on ch2 show 200mA is indeed the value. 

But another forking problem with the probe on ch1, another P6021 but terminated into Tek's 134 current probe amp shows the amp is buggered  and although checks of its external PSU and cabling and a look at its guts doesn't reveal anything obvious other than only 6.5V on it's regulated 14V rail which just makes you think bastard tants but there ain't any ! 
Probe swapped to a passive termination and it works perfectly ! 
Into the repair queue goes the 134 ! 

3 working Tek current probes and 2 working terminations and one more P6021 to check.

Anyways, screenshot:

[Specmaster]

I've been a little antsy about the progress (or lack of) of my 3478A.  It has been a while since I last brought something in from the States, but the wait feels interminable.

No doubt this is a function of the increased visibility available these days through tracking events and the greater interest I have in this shipment than I have had for some time .... plus the Covid-19 factor just puts an edge on things as well.


I need a local distraction.

Things from the USA to the UK typically take 2 to 3 weeks, so I would expect to maybe add another week to reach Oz.