Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[jxjbsd]

therapy，no  therapy:that is the wenti
This is another small toy after tek222a. Some problems in character display should be solved. Pick a good day to fix it.

[beanflying]

Nutthing much doing here today other than more frigging painting and more planned for tomorrow. 
Shiity weather will be here soon enough and then more time to peddle products again as we'll be out of full lockdown in a week. 

Stop your sooking and get in the shed, at least you will be able to go out for takeaway again soon Started cutting the Shakea flat pack for this today in between the showers and laminated the MDF top. Must get to work on the Garage roof for a winter solution.

[bd139]

Ooooh just discovered this wonderful IC: http://images.100y.com.tw/pdf_file/TLP598G.pdf

[Specmaster]

Calling all Datron fans in the UK especially, this has just appeared on eBay, claims they were working but he has taken the displays out of them for other projects 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303545121484?ul_noapp=true

[med6753]

Just woke up, first cup of coffee.

Watching the banter back and forth, got nothing to say.

Carry on. 

[bd139]

 

[Specmaster]

@mnem, Canada has it gunmen to then it seems, how far away was incident from you? Particularly devious of him to disguise himself and car as a police unit.

[Zucca]

I am doing my network at home, do you have a separate LAN just for the Test Equipment?
There are some unused  Intel NIC under my bench and I am wondering if it make sense to complete separate the TEA Ethernet from the rest.

I would argue that since we're mostly dealing with older devices, that won't see patches from either OS or equipment vendor, (For instance when an oscilloscope runs an embedded Windows or an unsupported 32-bit old Linux with special drivers that won't fit in newer OSes.) it is borderline reckless to give them the same connectivity as the rest of your computers. 

A separate (v)LAN with routing to the rest of your computers via a firewall holding a competent and restricted ruleset would be minimum security level, IMNSHO. For starters, the instruments shall not be able to connect to Internet resources. One shall not be able to connect to them except through a minimum set of ports and protocols, and those connections shall only be possible from specially approved computers on the usual LAN. This is assuming that the usual LAN only contains trustworthy computers. Media players, smart TV's, and other Orwellian Telescreens you've paid for yourself (like Alexa or Google Home) are not repeat NOT trustworthy.

Thus, you need a minimum of three LAN's; vintage, untrusted and trusted.

Forgive me mansa I still use a win10 box as my main PC in the lab. My plan is very basic. TEA LAN in a separate NIC on the WIN10 box, Internet LAN in an another NIC on the same win10 box.

@bd: Cisco 2921 is pure p0rno at that price, but I have no space for it. I am an happy camper with my little pfSense box.

EDIT: BTW I am happy to see smart people are still dealing with IPV4 for internal LAN stuff.

[Specmaster]

 

Thats some serious attitude there 

[med6753]

 

Nailed it. 

[bd139]

@bd: Cisco 2921 is pure p0rno at that price, but I have no space for it. I am an happy camper with my little pfSense box.

EDIT: BTW I am happy to see smart people are still dealing with IPV4 for internal LAN stuff.

It's a noisy bastard as well. I'm going to have to silence it somehow.

Yes IPv6 can die in a fire. For now anyway. My ISP (Zen) does IPv6 if you ask them to but I can't be arsed with it.

[BU508A]

 

 

And how long were you sitting on this?   

[nixiefreqq]

New addition to my TE-Stack: Hewlett Packard 5370b time interval counter:


Did a reasonable low offer that was accepted. Shipping plus customs fees will be more than the price though.   
I hope It'll go into my TE stack without problems and not into my repair stack.
I just hope the seller follows my plea for a strong cardboard package and strong padding on all sides..   

Now. all I can do is wait...

Am I a timenut? -No, I just need it to verify and calibrate my 5359A time synthesizer.    

have never used an emoji before in my entire life.

 

Did I miss something? Why are you clapping hands? 

Shipping plus customs will be more than 200 yankee-bucks so no Jammy Git imho.   

All prices for 5370b's being offered in the *bay at the moment are much higher though.

ok....let me try again.

but first a story.   used to work with a retired navy captain who was located off site.  every now and then he would send a message out that said only "BZ".  what?  we finally went and asked "big ed" who had been a gunnery officer on a destroyer.  he pretty much told us the following:



"The flag hoist "Bravo Zulu" The combination of the Bravo and Zulu nautical signal flags, i.e., Bravo Zulu, also referred to as "BZ," is a naval signal, typically conveyed by flaghoist or voice radio, meaning "Well Done" with regard to actions, operations or performance."


so congratulations on snagging the one unit every time nut drools over.

[mansaxel]

EDIT: BTW I am happy to see smart people are still dealing with IPV4 for internal LAN stuff.

Pathetic, is it. More about gear not being updated or even able to despite being younger than IPv6 RFC's .  I'm lucky in that I've got my own unique /24 bloc, and thanks to a bit of hackery-fuckery am able to use it both for my colo resources and for resources at home. If I could do all I need with v6, which I can't, yet, I'd stop fooling around with v4 altogether.

The single most important characteristic about an IP address is that it is unique. Using RFC 1918 et al. defeats that characteristic, making it practically useless.

[mansaxel]

so congratulations on snagging the one unit every time nut drools over.

Damn! Now you got me reading up on it. I want it for my experiments at work. I've expensed Ethernet taps off Ebay before. Now, I wonder how to pull this off..

[bd139]

And how long were you sitting on this?   

Just googled smurf coffee 

Edit: argh another distraction. Run out of computers. We have three laptops, a desktop, two ipads, 3 iphones. Need another computer because of sodding google classroom lockdown. Going to buy an old HP desktop and some tat. Literally moment I buy this they will lift lockdown as well I bet.

[SilverSolder]

EDIT: BTW I am happy to see smart people are still dealing with IPV4 for internal LAN stuff.

Pathetic, is it. More about gear not being updated or even able to despite being younger than IPv6 RFC's .  I'm lucky in that I've got my own unique /24 bloc, and thanks to a bit of hackery-fuckery am able to use it both for my colo resources and for resources at home.
[...]

Experiences like that, is what makes me do things like this as I got older:  I stuck with IPv4 for everything...  and instead, spent my time thinking about beautiful women!   

[Zucca]

/rant
Why this is happening in 2020 in a big and rich european city?
So sad.
/rant end

Update 20/04/2020

1&1: No Line available
Telekom: Only 16MB available
MNet: No Feedback
Vodafone: on the 05.05.2020 they should able to install my 250MB VDSL. 

5G signal is in Munich but not in my area, so 4G is still an option.... anyway unlimited 4G is still too expensive for me and I do not want to be under a 100GB/Month data thing.

As bd said 4G is a good back up plan, IF you have a strong 4G signal at your home, which is my case.

So it only took about 55 days to get a proper DSL, IF EVERYTHING GOES RIGHT. My spider senses are telling me that on the 05.05.2020 the Vodafone technical monkey will go: oh oh, sorry we have a problem. 

[Zucca]

EDIT: BTW I am happy to see smart people are still dealing with IPV4 for internal LAN stuff.

Pathetic, is it. More about gear not being updated or even able to despite being younger than IPv6 RFC's .  I'm lucky in that I've got my own unique /24 bloc, and thanks to a bit of hackery-fuckery am able to use it both for my colo resources and for resources at home. If I could do all I need with v6, which I can't, yet, I'd stop fooling around with v4 altogether.

The single most important characteristic about an IP address is that it is unique. Using RFC 1918 et al. defeats that characteristic, making it practically useless.

Well I tried in 2013 when I was living in USA to play with IPV6 on my Tomato router 
It was somehow difficoult to understand and to implement.

Tried again recently:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/networking/is-ipv6-important/msg2802634/#msg2802634
Still no joy.

[0culus]

I am doing my network at home, do you have a separate LAN just for the Test Equipment?
There are some unused  Intel NIC under my bench and I am wondering if it make sense to complete separate the TEA Ethernet from the rest.

I would argue that since we're mostly dealing with older devices, that won't see patches from either OS or equipment vendor, (For instance when an oscilloscope runs an embedded Windows or an unsupported 32-bit old Linux with special drivers that won't fit in newer OSes.) it is borderline reckless to give them the same connectivity as the rest of your computers. 

A separate (v)LAN with routing to the rest of your computers via a firewall holding a competent and restricted ruleset would be minimum security level, IMNSHO. For starters, the instruments shall not be able to connect to Internet resources. One shall not be able to connect to them except through a minimum set of ports and protocols, and those connections shall only be possible from specially approved computers on the usual LAN. This is assuming that the usual LAN only contains trustworthy computers. Media players, smart TV's, and other Orwellian Telescreens you've paid for yourself (like Alexa or Google Home) are not repeat NOT trustworthy.

Thus, you need a minimum of three LAN's; vintage, untrusted and trusted.

Snip

@bd: Cisco 2921 is pure p0rno at that price, but I have no space for it. I am an happy camper with my little pfSense box.

EDIT: BTW I am happy to see smart people are still dealing with IPV4 for internal LAN stuff.

You really don’t want to be depending on Cisco gear at home unless you are able to afford a support contract. Last I checked they will not provide you even with access to software images unless you are a paid support contract customer. Yeah, it might be cheap on eBay, but it might also end up being a doorstop. For home use, a pfsense box is way better supported. Combine it with a box running snort and you’ll have a pretty capable security gateway. Alternatively, ubiquiti security appliances are another viable option for a lot less $$ than Cisco.


Re IPv4 vs 6...don’t need that many addresses for my LAN, plus NAT is a useful extra layer of protection by not having every device right open to the the WAN.

[bd139]

Yeah don’t use Cisco stuff unless you have someone to hand hold you. I’ve got two Cisco guys and access to a support contract available 

[Cerebus]

Edit: question for all. I need to set up a separate VLAN for my test gear including potentially a 34401A at some point (serial only). Is buying an old Cisco 2600 router with a 16 port EtherSwitch and serial port WIC classified as overkill for this?  . You can pick them up for £12 (!) now inc delivery. Just add console and serial cables + etherswitch module and sorted.

I am doing my network at home, do you have a separate LAN just for the Test Equipment?
There are some unused  Intel NIC under my bench and I am wondering if it make sense to complete separate the TEA Ethernet from the rest.

Yes, it would. The quality of networking software and security hardening of a lot of test gear is as crappy as all the IoT shite out there. I'd keep it on a separate VLAN or even a physically different LAN if your skills/equipment doesn't run to VLANs (virtual LANs that share physical connectivity but are logically separated, for the uninitiated). That VLAN should not have Internet access and ideally should have a firewall between it and the rest of your internal network(s). If you've the networking skills and kit I might even go so far as to advocate using private VLANs (PVLANs) and only letting bits of test gear talk to each other that absolutely must talk to each other using PVLAN communities (e.g. if you're really fancy and you're using IEEE 1588 precision time protocol between bits of kit).

[bd139]

Also a lot of stuff calls home so you don't want outbound from your test gear VLAN.  Mostly looking at Rigol stuff there. I'm routing only from my PC LAN to the test gear LAN. The test gear LAN doesn't get NAT.

[Zucca]

Yes, it would.

I can and will go with a separated LAN, never used VLAN before and I am scared to mess something up.
Moreover thanks for your input you got me thinking how I could use my stupid tomato router which is now forgotten in one corner.

This could work:

TEA Ethernet where all the TEA gear is (no DHCP, only fixed IPV4 192.168.5.xxx/24) <---> WAN Tomato (fixed IP 192.168.5.1)

LAN Tomato (DHCP Server on 192.168.4.xxx/24) <----> Second NIC Win10 Box (DHCP ON)
                                                                       <-----> Wifi TEA for monitoring Devices with old iPads for example.

I like it. No internet on TEA Devices, and a stupid firewall between them and my PC / TEA WIFI.
Not sure if I will ever need DHCP for TEA gears... I like to have a fixed IP for that kind of devices....

If I made a stupid mistake sorry, I am still learning this...

EDIT: I liked your post so much I elevated you to my buddy list.
EDIT2: BD do not be jealous, you were in my buddy since forever....   

[Cerebus]

Ooooh just discovered this wonderful IC: http://images.100y.com.tw/pdf_file/TLP598G.pdf

If you think that's fun, have a ponder on the possibilities when using these: HCNR200 and HCNR201 High-Linearity Analog Optocouplers.

I was playing with these last week trying to design an 1.4kV isolated, battery powered, amplifier with them for making floating DC measurements. As always with anything involving a photodiode and a transimpedance amplifier getting enough bandwidth is the issue. In theory these will run to 1MHz, getting there is another question. Gave up in disgust at ~50kHz and I'll go back to it once it's spent enough time on the virtual 'healing bench'.