Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Wolfgang]

... the other way: you fall anyway. 

[Specmaster]

I thought I'd go through all the capacitors from the 4503 that I recapped and it was just as I suspected at the start when I wasn't convinced that doing a full recap is not always necessary, but most of us here do it any way, not a single capacitor actually warranted being replaced, all had very good ESR and capacity wise, were well within the spec by a good margin, so that was my first full recap and may well be my last without testing some of the caps at random. 

Yebbut there's always the chance of damaging the board.

I currently ought to replace these, to remove spurs that are -70dBc down:




And I have to replace those Rifas for the obvious reason:



Fear is giving me the opportunity to improve my techniques and tools

Is that wax or hot snot? If its hot snot and it is stuck to the board as well, good luck with that then.

[tggzzz]

I thought I'd go through all the capacitors from the 4503 that I recapped and it was just as I suspected at the start when I wasn't convinced that doing a full recap is not always necessary, but most of us here do it any way, not a single capacitor actually warranted being replaced, all had very good ESR and capacity wise, were well within the spec by a good margin, so that was my first full recap and may well be my last without testing some of the caps at random. 

Yebbut there's always the chance of damaging the board.

And I have to replace those Rifas for the obvious reason:



Fear is giving me the opportunity to improve my techniques and tools

Is that wax or hot snot? If its hot snot and it is stuck to the board as well, good luck with that then.

Not sure what it is. It can't be wax because of the heat (the external exhaust temperature is 30C so internally it will beat least 40C), and it is still slightly flexible after 30 years.

Fortunately the question is moot. It doesn't get to the board, and I'm not planning on replacing those BUFF caps since they are merely 50Hz and the spurs are at +-31kHz, the SMPS frequency.

[AVGresponding]

Whut? No-one uses wax on non-RF.

I say again, those Nichicons are better than anything you can buy to replace them (within reason).

Now stop playing with yourselves, and come to Discord.

[tggzzz]

Whut? No-one uses wax on non-RF.

I say again, those Nichicons are better than anything you can buy to replace them (within reason).

Now stop playing with yourselves, and come to Discord.

It is real honest-to-god HP mechanical over engineering. Wax would melt and go everywhere, and a spectrum analyser couldn't tolerate that.

Most of them are united chemicons, and the instrument is showing problems related to their performance. My preferred capacitor for SMPS are Nichicon PW, but some are a couple of mm too high and they all have a 7.5mm lead pitch vs a 10mm hole pitch.

[Saskia]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

[worsthorse]

After fixing the HF antenna, I decided to see if I could tackle two problems with my FT-1000D: a noisy volume control and hum on transmit. The volume control would likely be easy: deoxit.  Before taking the covers off, I did some diagnosing and thought the likely culprit to be one of two or three bypass capacitors very close to the mic input. So off the covers came.

Damn, there is a lot packed in there:

From the top:



From the bottom:



The goal was to remove the front panel assembly to access the controls and the PCB board where one of the suspect capacitors is located.  Here's where I stopped:



That is the cabling between the front panel and the collection of boards that make up the guts of the radio. To actually remove the panel as far as I did, I needed to rotate the radio ninety degrees, twice, while insuring that the cable "harness" didn't get twisted or nicked.   

This is not gear that is meant to be worked on, or at least this part of it isn't (by the likes of me).  I carefully cleaned the pots and switches I could reach without further disassembly, gave up on the idea of finding the bad capacitor, and very carefully put it back together.

Made me really appreciate just about ever piece of Fluke, HP, and Tek gear I have every worked on.

[Wolfgang]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

Me too. The aircraft of choice here is a H145 with 4Axis autopilot and the magic "freeze" button until you know where you really belong.

[nixiefreqq]

didn't bother me a bit. (Attachment Link)

Yes...yessssss...he's being slowly assimilated. 

maybe you need to look a little closer?

[tggzzz]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

You don't There are instruments and you are trained to trust them rather than your senses!

[Wolfgang]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

You don't There are instruments and you are trained to trust them rather than your senses!

Do they sailplane people still call it VFR if you only rely on your instruments ? AFAIK, there is no IFR flying with a lot of instruments not available on light planes.

[Cubdriver]

My first HP midget power supply is here. Not yet checked out, but was sold as functional.
It will replace a similar one from Power Trade, which I have pledged to the budding lab of a friend.

Those baby HPs are nice little boxes.  Collect the whole set!

-Pat

[mnementh]

Not going to be on Discord today. Rough night last night trying to sleep and now it is catching up to me. I'd probably start snoring with the mic on. 

So I'll catch everyone next week.

Seeya then, ya hoser.

mnem
*currently counting printer screws*

[mnementh]

didn't bother me a bit.

Yes...yessssss...he's being slowly assimilated. 

   maybe you need to look a little closer?

mnem
 

[mnementh]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

You don't There are instruments and you are trained to trust them rather than your senses!

The instruments say there's no mountain directly ahead of me...

mnem
splat.

[mnementh]

I think before I can partake in such a session, I need a new computer.

But another thing: the cable finder (called 'Finder plus') from 3M shown below: is that a inductive wire tracer like the probes from Ideal etc., or does it need a specific generator to work with? Anyone knows the thing?

Only thing I could find on it is the text of the auction that picture came from:

"Universal signal finder manufactured by the American company 3M. The device is of the FINDER PLUS type.

It was intended for assistance in the operation and commissioning of all types of power, electrical and ICT cabling, as well as for the service of equipment such as cable cabinets, switchboards, servers.

The device has the following functions: detection of electric and electromagnetic field, as well as a combination of these fields.

The following functions can be switched from the front panel:

- device sensitivity (4 subranges)
- adaptation of the diode ruler
- the type of field detected - electromagnetic, electric or both.

Thanks to the fact that the device has a built-in loudspeaker, it is very good at identifying wires.
By reducing the sensitivity, you can locate the searched wire even in multi-pair cables.

In the side wall of the device there is a small jack socket that allows you to connect the handset.

Power supply 3 R6 (AA) batteries.

dimensions:

length: 40 cm   width: 6.5 cm  thickness: 3 cm   The device may have slight traces of storage.

The device contains 13 integrated circuits and has a signal adaptation system enabling correct operation even in a strong electromagnetic field."

From that description, it sounds like it could be either an old-fashioned audio-frequency tracer or one of the newer "smart tracers" intended for use on live network cabling... or something in between.

mnem
*slightly past my "Best by:" date*

[tggzzz]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

You don't There are instruments and you are trained to trust them rather than your senses!

The instruments say there's no mountain directly ahead of me...

Old Himalayan pilots' creed: "don't fly in clouds because the clouds have rocks in them".

Bhutan:


Courcheval in the alps, skip to 4:03


Or nearby, also skipping to 4:03...

[0culus]

didn't bother me a bit. (Attachment Link)

Yes...yessssss...he's being slowly assimilated. 

maybe you need to look a little closer?

Blast...the evil plot is foiled... 

[0culus]

Today's project. I have three HP 438A power meters, two of which are in great shape and the third not as much. One of the former two had a bad fan, till I transplanted the fan from the effectively parts unit to it. Now I have two good working 438A meters. They are a little large, but two of them stack nicely with other HP gear and they are easy to read and use thanks to the displays.

[Neomys Sapiens]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

As I have already said, light aviation is not the most responsible bunch. They are a nuisance in the sky, playing their shenanigans at hapless rotary aviation preferably when the latter carries external loads.
And now they have cooked up that FLARM crap, on which they do not let anyone in so that nobody can  see what they are doing. I would ground them all until they transponderize properly.
But there IS something worse: baloonists.

[Wolfgang]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

As I have already said, light aviation is not the most responsible bunch. They are a nuisance in the sky, playing their shenanigans at hapless rotary aviation preferably when the latter carries external loads.
And now they have cooked up that FLARM crap, on which they do not let anyone in so that nobody can  see what they are doing. I would ground them all until they transponderize properly.
But there IS something worse: baloonists.

... even worse than the baloonists are the paragliders. You see them really late, and if you fly too close over them with your chopper the downwash just folds their canopy and they are gone.

[BU508A]

Fear is giving me the opportunity to improve my techniques and tools

Is that wax or hot snot? If its hot snot and it is stuck to the board as well, good luck with that then.

To me it looks like this Pattex glue:

[mnementh]

Huh... tonight while whipping out a quick 8V power supply for a little fan, I managed to kill a ST LM7808. And it failed open! Draws about 6mA, doesn’t get warm, no output.  Only thing I can figure is the caps in the 12V wall-wart I was using were dried out/open and no filtering. I just grabbed a different one and the new LM7808 is working quite happily now.

mnem
 

[beanflying]

Anyone interested in this as there was a little chatter about Blackstar on Discord this morning? Free postage offered in Oz and I would be happy to on forward elsewhere. eBay auction: #223982093115

[Neomys Sapiens]

How you adhere to VFR while in the clouds completely escapes me ...

As I have already said, light aviation is not the most responsible bunch. They are a nuisance in the sky, playing their shenanigans at hapless rotary aviation preferably when the latter carries external loads.
And now they have cooked up that FLARM crap, on which they do not let anyone in so that nobody can  see what they are doing. I would ground them all until they transponderize properly.
But there IS something worse: baloonists.

... even worse than the baloonists are the paragliders. You see them really late, and if you fly too close over them with your chopper the downwash just folds their canopy and they are gone.

Should we adress them as parafolders henceforth?