Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

Been busy with other things today but I spent a few minutes with the IG-18. The power supply output was measured at 38V. I disconnected it from the main circuit and it still was 38 V. According to the ideal output as shown on the schematic it would be 43 V. The zener is a 43 V version according to the parts list.

The supply did have the 47 V at the collector of Q10. The zener drop measured about 37.4 V. I wondered if the zener current was now a little low after all these years, so I pulled the 2400 ohm resistor and it measured 2600 ohms, so that would possibly cause the zener voltage to be a little low due to a low zener current. I replaced the resistor with a new 2400 ohm one and now I get 39 V output. I then tried a 2200 ohm resistor but the zener voltage stayed put, so I think I think for this type of simple generator it's good enough. I'll move on to the matter of the distorted sine wave.

Don't forget the ripple is as important as the mean voltage.

[xrunner]

39 volts is most likely OK. It is not unusual, and often stated on the schematic, that the voltages may vary as much as +/- 20%.

That's the nature of the beast with Heath equipment.

Don't forget the ripple is as important as the mean voltage.

Acknowledging both comments, thanks. Will keep checking things tomorrow. 

[Specmaster]

British?, there Italian cars 

Yes I know they are Italian. Lost in the translation here. If the most expensive car in the UK is a crap Fiat then obviously British cars must REALLY be crap.

Yep, its lost in the translation alright, what I was implying is that the Fiat 500, in particular the new Fiat 500X MY2020 EU6D is Fiats most expensive car in the UK. If you want a British designed and built car, try the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, £300,007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston_Martin_DBS_Superleggera

There are of course other models that are even more expensive, Lagonda Taraf, owned and made by Aston Martin with a price tag of £1 Million + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagonda

I of course have a garage stuffed full with them 

[Neomys Sapiens]

British?, there Italian cars 

Yes I know they are Italian. Lost in the translation here. If the most expensive car in the UK is a crap Fiat then obviously British cars must REALLY be crap.

Yep, its lost in the translation alright, what I was implying is that the Fiat 500, in particular the new Fiat 500X MY2020 EU6D is Fiats most expensive car in the UK. If you want a British designed and built car, try the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, £300,007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston_Martin_DBS_Superleggera

There are of course other models that are even more expensive, Lagonda Taraf, owned and made by Aston Martin with a price tag of £1 Million + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagonda

I of course have a garage stuffed full with them 

What? zhose Italian cars can't be sooo bad.....even the Carabinieri drove them.


Well, it WAS an improvement.


Around the same time, they gave their other police this:



Ouch. When you draw that straw, you know you are at the ass end of policing.

[Neomys Sapiens]

And it is not that FIAT did not try. 130 coupe would have been a nice way to express the high esteem towards the security organs. 

Talking of those:
@bd139, tgzzzz, specmaster, AVGresponding: anyone wants 'Cops and Robbers - the story of the British Police car' as an EPUB?

[ArthurDent]

Been busy with other things today but I spent a few minutes with the IG-18. The power supply output was measured at 38V. I disconnected it from the main circuit and it still was 38 V. According to the ideal output as shown on the schematic it would be 43 V. The zener is a 43 V version according to the parts list.

The supply did have the 47 V at the collector of Q10. The zener drop measured about 37.4 V. I wondered if the zener current was now a little low after all these years, so I pulled the 2400 ohm resistor and it measured 2600 ohms, so that would possibly cause the zener voltage to be a little low due to a low zener current. I replaced the resistor with a new 2400 ohm one and now I get 39 V output. I then tried a 2200 ohm resistor but the zener voltage stayed put, so I think I think for this type of simple generator it's good enough. I'll move on to the matter of the distorted sine wave.

Try lifting one end of your zener and put a 4.3VDC zener in series with it to get 43VDC output. If this doesn't give you 43 VDC out under load, check the filter caps (C1, C2) for low capacitance. Increasing the output to 43 VDC may also help with the sine clipping as well. Maybe no, but it is a quick test.

[0culus]

Tonight's fun: a search and destroy mission for an unwanted 10 MHz radiator in the lab. You may remember that I acquired a 5087A distribution amp recently. One culprit was the cheap ass coax I was (stupidly) using between the GPSDO's 10 MHz out and the "A" input of the 5087A. Exchanged for another cable and the signal went down quite a bit. Second culprit is my 3325B function generator with oven option. It uses an external jumper between the oven out and the timebase in (and it's not on the GPSDO, yet). If this jumper isn't arranged exactly right, it radiates strongly as well.  At least it's now low enough that WWV can be received.

[tggzzz]

And it is not that FIAT did not try. 130 coupe would have been a nice way to express the high esteem towards the security organs. 

Talking of those:
@bd139, tgzzzz, specmaster, AVGresponding: anyone wants 'Cops and Robbers - the story of the British Police car' as an EPUB?

No thanks - too many wheels, too few wings.

[Brumby]

Bah.

Just took a shot at a BWD 112B signal generator on fleabay.  Sniped at 2 seconds with a bid at the high end of my comfort zone.  There were 2 other snipers which I beat - but the winner put their bid in half an hour before the end.

Ah well... at least the seller got another $20 from my participation.

[Specmaster]

And it is not that FIAT did not try. 130 coupe would have been a nice way to express the high esteem towards the security organs. 

Talking of those:
@bd139, tgzzzz, specmaster, AVGresponding: anyone wants 'Cops and Robbers - the story of the British Police car' as an EPUB?

Hmm, it might be interesting, tell me more.

[bd139]

I'll pass. I lugged a water bomb at an old Ford Sierra fuzz wagon once. Had to leg it across a graveyard (more difficult than it looked). That's my contribution 

[beanflying]

Bah.

Just took a shot at a BWD 112B signal generator on fleabay.  Sniped at 2 seconds with a bid at the high end of my comfort zone.  There were 2 other snipers which I beat - but the winner put their bid in half an hour before the end.

Ah well... at least the seller got another $20 from my participation.

Keep an eye on that same seller there is a dyslexic thing going on with listing titles  Glad you were there at the end 

[AVGresponding]

Some of the criticism levied at that little FIAT van may be justified, but much seems unwarranted to me.
 Put your rose-tinted spectacles away, pretty much all vehicles from that era were crap, with a very few notable exceptions.

Cars from back them were poorly designed, poorly built, and from inferior materials, much of the time. Chevy Corvair ring a bell? Ford Pinto maybe?

People like vehicles from previous eras for reasons other than them being the best car ever made, for much the same reasons people here would rather play with  Tek 485 than a modern plastic box like a Rigol (model = random collection of letters and numbers).
Not hating on Rigols here, just used them as the first name that came to mind.
It's about character, and the pleasure taken in the use of the thing.

Now as for FIAT in particular, modern ones are like most modern mass-market cars; a triumph of marketing wank over actual worth.
The reputation they garnered in the 1970s and 1980s for rusting while-you-wait, due to excessive use of poorly recycled steel in the monocoque and body panels is really irrelevant now, as is the reputation from the 1990s for horrific unreliability.
Now the problem with them from my point of view is the over-reliance on faux nostalgic designs. This is not "character" imo, it's just laziness.

Yes, I am a petrolhead, and recently discovered HubNut's channel, I like his understated and dry delivery, and his depth of knowledge is impressive, if not infallible.

If I won the lottery there would be quite a few|  a lot bloody loads of cars in my garages, and most of them would be more than 10 years old. Some would be nearly a hundred years old! (Alfa-Romeo 8C-2800 for example).
There wouldn't be many FIATs in it though, maybe an X1/9, Strada Abarth, 131/Super Mirafiori are about the only three I can think of, and they'd be well down my all-manufacturers list. Still, some people like them, and I can't criticise them for it, any more than I could criticise someone for liking Brymens or Siglents or (gods help us) RPN calculators...

[bd139]

I'm going to hide my 2014 Citroen, 2019 Siglent, 2019 Fluke and 2017 HP 35s quick 

[med6753]

If my only choices were a Fiat vs a Citroen it would be a no brainer. Clearly Fiat. For some reason Citroen want's their cars to look like giant dildos. Must be a French thing. 

[bd139]

Best thing to drive up the asshole in front with 

[BU508A]

If my only choices were a Fiat vs a Citroen it would be a no brainer. Clearly Fiat. For some reason Citroen want's their cars to look like giant dildos. Must be a French thing. 

I have to disagree. Giant dildos are more a japanese thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanamara_Matsuri

        

[Specmaster]

@ AVGresponding Can't disagree with you, I love cars and watch many motoring blogs and TV programs but I also love commercial vehicles as well, often thought about buying an old bus and converting it into a reasonable RV but have nowhere to park or work on it so thats a none starter Always been a dream of mine that if I were to win a reasonable amount of money on the Lottery that I'd love to buy a Volkswagen Phaeton W12. Thats a car that slips under the radar of all but a few, as a dull and boring VW so you could take it and park it almost anywhere and not have to worry about it being vandalised or stolen. Safe in the knowledge that you were driving essentially a Bentley Continental with disguised body on it, That would be the ultimate Q car for me

[Specmaster]

If my only choices were a Fiat vs a Citroen it would be a no brainer. Clearly Fiat. For some reason Citroen want's their cars to look like giant dildos. Must be a French thing. 

I find myself struggling to agree with this, which model in particular are you thinking of here   

[med6753]

If my only choices were a Fiat vs a Citroen it would be a no brainer. Clearly Fiat. For some reason Citroen want's their cars to look like giant dildos. Must be a French thing. 

I find myself struggling to agree with this, which model in particular are you thinking of here   

OK, I will concede that the new ones don't look like that. But the old ones? Without a doubt. 

[BU508A]

If my only choices were a Fiat vs a Citroen it would be a no brainer. Clearly Fiat. For some reason Citroen want's their cars to look like giant dildos. Must be a French thing. 

I find myself struggling to agree with this, which model in particular are you thinking of here   

OK, I will concede that the new ones don't look like that. But the old ones? Without a doubt. 

Some say, the name of this car is "goddess".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_DS#Name

Doesn't have a lot in common with a dildo, I think. 

[med6753]

If my only choices were a Fiat vs a Citroen it would be a no brainer. Clearly Fiat. For some reason Citroen want's their cars to look like giant dildos. Must be a French thing. 

I find myself struggling to agree with this, which model in particular are you thinking of here   

OK, I will concede that the new ones don't look like that. But the old ones? Without a doubt. 

Some say, the name of this car is "goddess".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_DS#Name

Doesn't have a lot in common with a dildo, I think. 

Ya think? We won't go there. 

[Specmaster]

If my only choices were a Fiat vs a Citroen it would be a no brainer. Clearly Fiat. For some reason Citroen want's their cars to look like giant dildos. Must be a French thing. 

I find myself struggling to agree with this, which model in particular are you thinking of here   

OK, I will concede that the new ones don't look like that. But the old ones? Without a doubt. 

Some say, the name of this car is "goddess".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_DS#Name

Doesn't have a lot in common with a dildo, I think. 

Nah, sorry Med, I'm still not seeing what you're seeing. What I see is a beautiful sleek aerodynamic body shape designed to slice through the air with as little drag as possible. To me a dildo is the opposite and users of them actually want to be made aware of its presence   , I'm with BU508A on this one. 

[Ero-Shan]

This has long been overdue. The TE swap with Neomys Sapiens got me a HP4261A LCR meter, which had to compete against my Tonghui TH2822A.

The ubiquitous picture to get you in the mood:


All electrolytic capacitors where measured with 120 Hz, all others with 1 kHz, except where noted (the HP offers only those 2 frequencies).
All coils where measured with 1 kHz, resistors with 120 Hz.

Here's the results:

Capacitor               HP4261A                 TH2811A
                        Value       D           Value       D       Note
------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 pF Ceramic Disc      10.8p       0.000       10.8p       0.0002
100 pF FKC              92.5p       0.002       92.8p       0.0050
100 pF Ceramic Disc     98.4p       0.014       98.6p       0.0137
1000 pF FKC             1025p       0.001       1.0427n     0.0006
1000 pF Styroflex        988p        0.001       987.5p      0.0001
1000 pF MP              1103p       0.017       1.1044n     0.0164
1000 pF Ceramic Disc    1000p       0.014       1.0028n     0.0123
10 nF Rifa (2 kV)       9.71n       0.001       9.714n      0.0003
10 nF Ceramic Disc      12.03n      0.016       12.028n     0.0137
10 nF Eroid             14.7n       0.058       14.728n     0.0579
10 nF Mustard           10.65n      0.004       10.650n     0.0027
10 nF FKS               10.07n      0.004       10.077n     0.0037
10 nF MKS4              9.95n       0.005       9.951n      0.0042
10 nF Styroflex          10.06n      0.001       10.058n     0.0002
10 nF Ceramic Tubular   10.09n      0.007       10.000n     0.0055
30000 pF Ref ±0.5 %     30.2n       0.001       30.158n     0.0002  (1)
100 nF Erofol II        102.3n      0.006       102.32n     0.0048
100 nF MKS              102.0n      0.005       101.97n     0.0044
100 nF MKS4             104.9n      0.005       104.91n     0.0039
100 nF Wima TFF         92.2n       0.005       92.89n      0.0044
100 nF MKT              98.1n       0.005       98.17n      0.0041
100 nF Polyester?       100.0n      0.005       100.01n     0.0045
100 nF Mustard          106.5n      0.004       106.54      0.0032
100 nf Ceramic Blue     77.5n       0.017       75.18n      0.0127  (2)
100 nF Ceramic Beige    83.9n       0.006       81.57n      0.0049
1 µF "Procord"          977n        0.003       976.6n      0.0036
1 µF MKS4               1016n       0.003       1.0609µ     0.0042
1 µF MMK                1006n       0.003       1.0051µ     0.0042
1 µF TFM                1005n       0.003       1.0044µ     0.0043
1 µF Mustard            1098n       0.005       1.0971µ     0.0060
1 µF Ceramic            989n        0.007       1.0068µ     0.0134
1 µF Electrolytic       913n        0.073       911.6n      0.0739  (3)
1 µF Electrolytic       989n        0.038       988.1n      0.0381
10 µF Electrolytic      11.17µ      0.047       11.172µ     0.0474
10 µF MKS4              10.48µ      0.003       10.474µ     0.0040
10 µF EFCO II           9.89µ       0.000       9.890µ      0.0008  (4)
100 µF Electrolytic     106.1µ      0.049       105.95µ     0.0498
1000 µF Electrolytic    889µ        0.052       887.1µ      0.0522
10000 µF Electrolytic   11.65m      0.337       10.484m     0.3295

Coil                    HP4261A                 TH2811A             (5)
                        Value       D           Value       Q
------------------------------------------------------------------
Unlabeled Cylindrical   4.2µ        no display  3.6µ        0.0320
18 µH Cylindical        19.5µ       OutOfRange  18.6µ       0.2048
1 mH Radial             1052µ       0.281       1.0452m     3.521
10 µH Cylindical        13.2µ       0.364       12.3µ       2.504
Toroid                  26.3m       0.182       32.656m     1.494

Resistor                HP4261A         TH2811A
                        Value           Value
-----------------------------------------------
0.1 Ω ±1 %              102m            0.1019
1.0 Ω ±0.01 %           998m            0.9990
10 Ω ±0.1 %             10.00           10.004
50 Ω ±0.005 %           49.9            49.99
100 Ω ±0.005 %          99.9            99.93
1000 Ω ±0.1 %           999             999.2
10 kΩ ±0.1 %            9.99k           9.999k
100 kΩ ±0.1 %           OutOfRange      100.01k

Notes:
(1) Also gotten from NS
(2) Knackered?
(3) Same cap as next line, but with 1 kHz
(4) Proclaimed as High Quality
(5) Subtract about 1.2 µH for long test leads with HP

I leave the interpretation up to you.

[xrunner]

Try lifting one end of your zener and put a 4.3VDC zener in series with it to get 43VDC output. If this doesn't give you 43 VDC out under load, check the filter caps (C1, C2) for low capacitance. Increasing the output to 43 VDC may also help with the sine clipping as well. Maybe no, but it is a quick test.

Good Idea ArtherDent. I had bought a large selection of zeners last year and had the exact value you mentioned. I just finished testing that mod and it did bring the output up to 42.6V. 

I checked the ripple and it's about 5 mV p-p so that's fine.

And no, what you see is NOT the final construction of the mod people so don't get all wigged out about it at this time.