Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Whew.....I hit power on and stood back with fire extinguisher in hand. 

And the Type 561B powered up! No flames, no magic smoke.

+300VDC reads +299.8VDC
+125VDC reads +125.2VDC
-12.2VDC reads -12.1VDC
-100VDC reads -99.8VDC

This is with no plug-ins installed. I'll set the voltages once I have both plug-ins installed.

I even have a spot on the CRT which means I have HV. 

Whew! 

[BU508A]

Hey, they're YOUR lips... go crazy. Maybe even try a little tongue...

mnem
I'd pay to see that.

China is your pal:



     *brzzzzt*     *zappp*

[mnementh]

mnem
*backs slowly away from the man with Electric Lips of Doom...*

[Ero-Shan]

Yes, the bug has bitten you. 

That 8010A and 8000A look brand new. Much cleaner than mine. 

Not just the Flukes. The Philips also looks brand new. Seems it has been kept in pitch black darkness for the last 35+ years. There's no other explanation for the plastic not disintegrating.

Very nice!

[Neomys Sapiens]

@med6753: A well deserved enjoyment of your perseverance - I hope it endures!

[Zucca]

http://info.okinternational.com/gt90-gt120

Metcal with variable temperature adjustment?

 

[tonyalbus]

Whew.....I hit power on and stood back with fire extinguisher in hand. 

And the Type 561B powered up! No flames, no magic smoke.

+300VDC reads +299.8VDC
+125VDC reads +125.2VDC
-12.2VDC reads -12.1VDC
-100VDC reads -99.8VDC

This is with no plug-ins installed. I'll set the voltages once I have both plug-ins installed.

I even have a spot on the CRT which means I have HV. 

Whew! 

Yeah!! Well done, thats what makes a good day

[tonyalbus]

Yes, the bug has bitten you. 

That 8010A and 8000A look brand new. Much cleaner than mine. 

Not just the Flukes. The Philips also looks brand new. Seems it has been kept in pitch black darkness for the last 35+ years. There's no other explanation for the plastic not disintegrating.

Very nice!

Its The Netherlands... we have 4 seasons... rainey cold winter, cold winter, rainey cold and summer ;-)  .. no UV..  makes a huge difference.... oh yeah and we complain about bad weather.. ;-)
but our summers are very nice.. the rest is good for TE ..

[tonyalbus]

Not to bad,
only the 8000A is a bit off

12.08
12.085
12.06
12.09 sometimes 12.08
12.086

8000A's are drifty and the reason is that Fluke went with an unregulated +5V supply. If that 8000A doesn't have the battery option there is a fix. You'll need to install an additional small power transformer because the original can't provide the voltage headroom for a 7805 chip to regulate. I also upgraded the +/- 15V supplies with modern IC's.

Thanks!..
it was designed for 220Volt back then, here in the netherlands.. now we run on 230.. maybe thats just enough to use the excisting transformer. and the 78/79. ill have to check first..
thank you guys for all the suggestions!

Tony

[Specmaster]

@BU508A I just tried my crystal tester as a frequency counter and its reasonably accurate as well. I certainly would not wish to claim that the reading was spot on, but it is certainly good enough to give you a quick and dirty sanity check and I think that these little kits (in their cases) are good enough to be used as a mini portable tool kit for use in the field provided of course they fit the type of equipment that falls within their scope. I'm actually quite impressed with their capabilities given the cost of them. Still much prefer my normal bench gear though of course it goes without saying, but if you had to use them, then within limits they would do the job. 

[tonyalbus]

@BU508A I just tried my crystal tester as a frequency counter and its reasonably accurate as well. I certainly would not wish to claim that the reading was spot on, but it is certainly good enough to give you a quick and dirty sanity check and I think that these little kits (in their cases) are good enough to be used as a mini portable tool kit for use in the field provided of course they fit the type of equipment that falls within their scope. I'm actually quite impressed with their capabilities given the cost of them. Still much prefer my normal bench gear though of course it goes without saying, but if you had to use them, then within limits they would do the job. 

They are nice for the money you pay...

docs are in the description or comments

[Mr. Scram]

8000A supply is a piece of shit. Also watch out as there’s mains on the unmasked board! Really don’t like those meters.

Also the regulator transistors run hot and tend to go low beta so if you’re getting any weird stuff it might be PSRR related. Swap them out for new transistors and sorted.

If you think any of that is bad then look at amazon’s retail and cloud operations.

At the end of the day it’s hyper optimised capitalism. It’s a shit show and we have to live in it. If we break it we hurt more people.

Us stupid humans really fucked up didn’t we.

It's hurting people the way it is too. The article describes reasonably well how many of these ventures are a no win situation. Everyone involved or dragged in loses out, except perhaps a few parties mostly out of sight and well isolated from the practicalities.

When it's become a business model to boot infinite startups with the express purpose of one being bought out sooner or later, instead of creating actual added value, you know things aren't what they should. People don't start businesses to start a business, but to inflate a bubble big enough to be interesting. There's no long game or sustainability. But maybe the joke's on us, backwards plebs infatuated with the notion a business should produce something of value or use. Toiling our lives away for meagre gains like the peasants we are.

[AVGresponding]

Yes, the bug has bitten you. 

That 8010A and 8000A look brand new. Much cleaner than mine. 

Not just the Flukes. The Philips also looks brand new. Seems it has been kept in pitch black darkness for the last 35+ years. There's no other explanation for the plastic not disintegrating.

Very nice!

Its The Netherlands... we have 4 seasons... rainey cold winter, cold winter, rainey cold and summer ;-)  .. no UV..  makes a huge difference.... oh yeah and we complain about bad weather.. ;-)
but our summers are very nice.. the rest is good for TE ..

Don't try to out-rain me, I live in Britain, and have Dutch ancestry to boot!

[tonyalbus]

Yes, the bug has bitten you. 

That 8010A and 8000A look brand new. Much cleaner than mine. 

Not just the Flukes. The Philips also looks brand new. Seems it has been kept in pitch black darkness for the last 35+ years. There's no other explanation for the plastic not disintegrating.

Very nice!

Its The Netherlands... we have 4 seasons... rainey cold winter, cold winter, rainey cold and summer ;-)  .. no UV..  makes a huge difference.... oh yeah and we complain about bad weather.. ;-)
but our summers are very nice.. the rest is good for TE ..

Don't try to out-rain me, I live in Britain, and have Dutch ancestry to boot!

https://youtu.be/uxRpMP3NqUs

[Specmaster]

@BU508A I just tried my crystal tester as a frequency counter and its reasonably accurate as well. I certainly would not wish to claim that the reading was spot on, but it is certainly good enough to give you a quick and dirty sanity check and I think that these little kits (in their cases) are good enough to be used as a mini portable tool kit for use in the field provided of course they fit the type of equipment that falls within their scope. I'm actually quite impressed with their capabilities given the cost of them. Still much prefer my normal bench gear though of course it goes without saying, but if you had to use them, then within limits they would do the job. 

They are nice for the money you pay...

docs are in the description or comments

The one you built is not exactly the same, they are however very similar.

[Mr. Scram]

Bugger. My little Tenma power supply started occasionally making a racket while under load. Sounds like the fan bearings are rattling about as it speeds up. I'm not really keen on replacing the fans. Maybe I can grease things up a bit, but they're somewhat tucked away. It still does its job, so that's good.

[bd139]

Is that one of those Korad rebrands? Are they any good (apart from the shit fan  ) ?

[Mr. Scram]

Is that one of those Korad rebrands? Are they any good (apart from the shit fan  ) ?

Tenma is the Farnell rebrand. I like the little buggers. They're quite utilitarian, but do the job without much fuss even at the extremes of their rated output. Some don't like the interface but I much prefer it over the other power supplies I've used. Let me put it this way: if I were to drop this one I wouldn't hesitate to get another.

[bd139]

Cool. I may invest in one at some point as they are considerably smaller than my PL330QMD!

[Specmaster]

Bugger. My little Tenma power supply started occasionally making a racket while under load. Sounds like the fan bearings are rattling about as it speeds up. I'm not really keen on replacing the fans. Maybe I can grease things up a bit, but they're somewhat tucked away. It still does its job, so that's good.

Thats the ones with the setting lock?

[tggzzz]

Is that one of those Korad rebrands? Are they any good (apart from the shit fan  ) ?

Tenma is the Farnell rebrand. I like the little buggers. They're quite utilitarian, but do the job without much fuss even at the extremes of their rated output. Some don't like the interface but I much prefer it over the other power supplies I've used. Let me put it this way: if I were to drop this one I wouldn't hesitate to get another.

My Tenma PSU is the splitting image of the Korad KA series. I got it cheap as it was returned to Farnell for unknown reasons. The UI is usable, but I've seen better. There's a rotary control which increments according to which digit is selected - that's fine for increasing in 10/100/1000mV steps, e.g. 0.987 -> 1.087 if the second digit is selected.

Mine has worked fine, except that one of the rotary controls became very noisy. It is an electrical quadrature switch, so I cured the problem by applying IPA then DeOxit.

[Mr. Scram]

Thats the ones with the setting lock?

I suppose so? It does have a lock. It's from the same series tggzzz just posted about. Dave did a review on them too, but that's back when they had some issues that are fixed now.

[Mr. Scram]

Cool. I may invest in one at some point as they are considerably smaller than my PL330QMD!

I feel it's one of those bits of kit you can't really go wrong with. It does the job without throwing a fit and you get more than your money's worth. It's not perfect but neither is equipment many times its price.

[bd139]

Yeah exactly. I will probably lose the PL330QMD and get a single Tenma and gain a lot of space and about 100 quid 

[Cerebus]

Well, eBay has ceased to be shit - for me at least.

Just scored an Agilent E3610A for £82 + a very reasonable £6.71 postage. Cushty. For those, like me, who don't keep an encyclopaedic list of model numbers in their heads that's a 2U 1/2 rack DC bench PSU 0-8V@3A or 0-15V@2A. Fanless, naturally, like the rest of my slowly growing stack of HP/Agilent/Harrison 1/2 rack PSUs. Due Weds/Thurs all the way from sunny Southend-on-Sea. I beat some other cheapskate by one bid increment over the minimum bid - if that was one of the resident fellow cheapskates, my apologies.

In other news, I found my de-burring tool and a little packet of mixed precision/fast op amps that I'd been trying to find for weeks. Bloody cat had batted them out of the tray they were in, and down the back of the bedroom bookcase when she'd been climbing up to the forbidden heights of War-Drobe. Normally she limits her electronics 'help' to ESD testing.