Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Robert763]

Counter with CRT in buy/sell/wanted:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/(fs)-eu-used-agilent-1680a-tektronix-dpo3032-rs-hmo3032-rs-smiq03s/msg3163412/#msg3163412

Tony? 

Shame someone robbed the frequency reference out of it and replaced it with a DIL oscillator
http://www.instal.neostrada.pl/allegro/testgear/Schl2721/Schl2721-12.jpg
 

[Cerebus]

Ahha I have that set too. Very nice screwdrivers. Didn’t know they worked with JIS heads.

The information is not trumpeted, in fact it's hidden in foot notes in about 5pt type.

[Saskia]

what's modificated ? An attempt to get more points at scrabble ?

[Ice-Tea]

Ahha I have that set too. Very nice screwdrivers. Didn’t know they worked with JIS heads.

Me three.

[mansaxel]

As a heads up to any who may be interested, apparently someone on the bay of evil has stumbled onto a cache of those HP coffee mugs:
(Attachment Link)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/114327183149?ul_noapp=true&shqty=2&isGTR=1#shId

There are allegedly more than ten available, and the price is not too insane compared to what I've seen them go for in the past.

-Pat

<edit to add picture from auction>

Price is OK. Shipping not.



Fucking idiots.

[Cerebus]

what's modificated ? An attempt to get more points at scrabble ?

The result of a German thinking that their English is good enough that they don't need to get a professional translator in to do the job. They were wrong. Sadly I see this more and more often - Germans aren't the only guilty parties but they are one of the more common culprits. (This may be biased, I've done more international business in/with Germany than anywhere else.)  However, it is still an improvement on when our Chinese friends operate on the same basis.

[duckduck]

I've joined the "rack-mount HP test equipment" club. Got a 3455A for US$60 off of craigslist. Seems to be in good nick for something old enough to be both affordable and "Made in the USA": front and rear binding posts are not chipped or cracked, fan bearings aren't screaming, fan filter is all there, button lights are 100%, side straps look good. Most of the rest of my used test equipment looks like it has been dragged in a sack down the stairs of the Burj Kalifa. I don't have a good way to evaluate the accuracy of a 6 1/2 digit meter, but the first 4 digits match my Fluke 179 which is a good omen. Previous owner claimed that he hadn't been in it. I was going to clean it up inside but my Phillips #2 didn't fit the case screw right so now I've got a Pozidriv bit set on the way. I'm surprised that I've been able to ignore JIS and Pozidriv for this many decades I understand the fan on the 3455A is unobtainium. Display looks goofy in the picture due to scan-rate mismatch but it's bright and all digits light up with human persistence of vision enabled. Looks like I can't put off building my bench shelf anymore.

If the fan is a brushless design with the external driver PCB like the HP 4276A LCZ meter, it can probably be swapped with a standard 12v fan running from the supply to the driver PCB.
Check my youtube channel for the 4276A video and you'll see what I did and if the fan is the same type.

Pozidriv bit set came in and it's love at first sight. Pozidriv is just like Torx as far as the feel of it. It sticks in the fastener and doesn't try to cam out like Phillips. I know the history and design goals, but it's neat to actually use it. I know that I'm late to the party, but I'm enjoying myself 

I cleaned the fan and it seems that the layers of dust were keeping it quiet. It now sounds the same as a brand-new clothes dryer running with two kilograms of pea gravel in it. I've add a fan replacement to my to-do list. The fan has 4 wires and there is a discrete circuit on the main digital board that looks like may it could be a brushless controller? I literally have no idea. I'll have to hit the schematics. Another user claims that it looks like the fan in the 3437A which they replaced with a regular 12V unit and some caps. Maybe I could steal some DC from upstream since the transformer and rectifiers are next door.

I cracked open the analog side of the 3455A and it really is a work of art. I'm just not used to seeing devices where the standards of engineering and build-quality are so high. I won't try to recreate the nice teardown that EEVblog user daqq has already done for us. Do yourself a favor and check it out. PCBs with no soldermask and gold-plated traces, little networks built on top of insulated stand-offs, hand-written QC/QA marks, little metal cans and high-spec components galore. This thing must have cost as much as a car.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hp-3455a-teardown/

[Saskia]

what's modificated ? An attempt to get more points at scrabble ?

The result of a German thinking that their English is good enough that they don't need to get a professional translator in to do the job. They were wrong. Sadly I see this more and more often - Germans aren't the only guilty parties but they are one of the more common culprits. (This may be biased, I've done more international business in/with Germany than anywhere else.)  However, it is still an improvement on when our Chinese friends operate on the same basis.

Reminds me of one of our team leaders:
Now, leave the church in the village !
(what the f is he talking about...)
He thinks his English is pretty good. I tend to disagree.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I'm surprised that I've been able to ignore JIS and Pozidriv for this many decades

On this side of the pond, we were in the 50/50 league. Half PZ, half PH. UK kit seemed to be much more PZ, while german stuff was Allen/Inbus. Wood screws were PZ, if not for drywall, there PH ruled.

Now it's all moving to Torx.

My father may be somewhat to blame for the UK being mostly Pozidrive, he was at one time a Sales Manager for GKN fastners division (then known as Guest, Keen, Nettlefold and Mossers) who aggressively promoted Pozidrive in the UK in the 60s and 70s. (One upside of his job, we were never short of the right nut, screw or bolt at home. If we were, we had a pound of them by the end of the next working day.  My father is the reason that I knew how to (1) Sing "Blaydon Races", (2) box and (3) pick the right type and size of screwdriver, even before I went to Infant's School. )

There are a lot of Phillips users who think they're blissfully ignored JIS for many a year, but if they go and examine the screw heads on anything Japanese that they own, and have taken apart, the apprentice marks will be witness that it wasn't quite as blissful as they thought.

Being a past master at mangling the heads of fasteners (even with the correct tooling) I am grateful that the rest of the world is finally waking up to the benefits of Torx (aka hexalobular) drive. I have yet to even slightly deform a Torx head, I cannot say the same for slotted, hex (Allen), Phillips, JIS, or Pozidrive (the only reason that Robinson isn't in the list of "things I have wrecked" is that I have still to encounter one in real life).

You forgot Reed&Prince (and BNAE NFL22-070). I still have to do sometimes a thorough check of eastern (WP/Comblock/CIS) Gos-standards and documents which are equivalents of the 'engineering design standards' of the US army for any hidden fastener profiles.
I'm still stuck at their coaxial connectors.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Safer than what the German government is considering: launching space going rockets from oil rigs. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Another problem there: they don't have oil rigs. Which means they would have to either invade Norway or Scotland or the US. 
What do the German Luftwaffe of 1945 and 2020 have in common ?
4 airworthy aircraft ...

Yes, but what is the difference?
The fact that anybody was very very interested in those four in 1945.

[Neomys Sapiens]

...The Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: “We want the UK to be the first place in Europe to launch small satellites and in order to do that, we need business-friendly regulations in place."

Short version: "Lets deregulate everything for the sake of a few thousand 'potential jobs'; that has worked out so well for the US."

Oh, it won't be a risk to anybody, as long as they're not Scots. For years the UK government has put everything that might be a little bit of a problem for the general population in Scotland. Used to be East London (I'm less than five miles from a derelict explosives works), then the North of England (Windscale/Calder Hall/Sellafield) and then it was Scotland (Faslane). Let's face it, it's better than sticking it somewhere where it's only insignificant foreigners who are at risk (Maralinga, Woomera et al.).

You can can rent their outback as a test range to let your autonomuous systems roam.
As Australia is rather broke from what I hear, I expect that any limits on this will go down soon.
Then I hope to see that someone is setting free nanites that digest Ayers Rock overnight.

[BU508A]

what's modificated ? An attempt to get more points at scrabble ?

The result of a German thinking that their English is good enough that they don't need to get a professional translator in to do the job. They were wrong. Sadly I see this more and more often - Germans aren't the only guilty parties but they are one of the more common culprits. (This may be biased, I've done more international business in/with Germany than anywhere else.)  However, it is still an improvement on when our Chinese friends operate on the same basis.

Reminds me of one of our team leaders:
Now, leave the church in the village !
(what the f is he talking about...)
He thinks his English is pretty good. I tend to disagree.

However, sometimes I'm making fun of it to drive my english colleagues crazy with some directly translated phrases such as:

- This is not the yellow of the egg
- I believe I spider
- I think you are on the woodway
- Let us make out of the dust
- you are a joke cookie

and so on and so forth ...       

In Germany we are calling this "Lübke Englisch"
Heinrich Lübke was the president of West-Germany in the sixties. He was known for his not very good English.
There is this urban legend told about him and the Queen. The Queen visited Germany in 1965 and during
this visit, the Queen and Mr. Lübke visited a horse race. Lübke wanted to tell the Queen, that the race will
start any second but what he allegedly said was: "Equal goes it loose.". The Queen looked puzzled. 

Edit:
Nice English - German word play. I like this joke. 

"Die in Hell - Ein Satz, den man öfter beim Schuhe kaufen hört."

[Neomys Sapiens]

what's modificated ? An attempt to get more points at scrabble ?

The result of a German thinking that their English is good enough that they don't need to get a professional translator in to do the job. They were wrong. Sadly I see this more and more often - Germans aren't the only guilty parties but they are one of the more common culprits. (This may be biased, I've done more international business in/with Germany than anywhere else.)  However, it is still an improvement on when our Chinese friends operate on the same basis.

Reminds me of one of our team leaders:
Now, leave the church in the village !
(what the f is he talking about...)
He thinks his English is pretty good. I tend to disagree.

No, I won't.

[bitseeker]

That 199 appears to be in great condition. Does it happen to have a scanner card in it? That'd be a bonus.

I like these old Keithley DMMs with the big LED displays. I have a 196.

Will check, thanks.... what does that do?

It enables you to connect the meter to multiple measurement points and sample them sequentially. It's a trade off between the cost and space of using multiple meters to see everything vs. just one meter and not being able to see multiple measurements simultaneously.

[bitseeker]

just arrived on my doorstep.... could not let it go by...seller wanted to get rid of it whatever the cost...no other way.. then who am i..

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!

[duckduck]

It annoys me no end when manufacturers lets ideology interfere with good technology; it's like we're all back on the playground in fucking 4th grade.

(Attachment Link)

[chronos42]

"Die in Hell - Ein Satz, den man öfter beim Schuhe kaufen hört."

  Den kannte ich noch nicht.

No chance for any auto translator.

[mnementh]

Safer than what the German government is considering: launching space going rockets from oil rigs. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Another problem there: they don't have oil rigs. Which means they would have to either invade Norway or Scotland or the US. 
What do the German Luftwaffe of 1945 and 2020 have in common ?
4 airworthy aircraft ...

And now for something completely different:   https://youtu.be/5f8MinrUTpw

"...Gather together those sumarines which don't leak... prime those rifles which do not jam... buy 55,000 tickets on the Eurostar and invade France. Or... we could wait for the Euro to drop a bit more... and simply buy the place."

*snerk*

mnem
Oh, what a difference a little BREXIT makes... 

[mnementh]

and now   

mnem
*twitch... twitch... twitcha-twitch...*

[mnementh]

   As a heads up to any who may be interested, apparently someone on the bay of evil has stumbled onto a cache of those HP coffee mugs: eBay auction: #114327183149
There are allegedly more than ten available, and the price is not too insane compared to what I've seen them go for in the past.

-Pat

Oooohhh... tasty...

Shipping: $33.18 for 2 International Priority Shipping to Canada  via the Global Shipping Program

 

mnem
also effing OW!!!

[drussell]

Shipping: $33.18 for 2 International Priority Shipping to Canada  via the Global Shipping Program

 

It says it would be $38.00 for 2 to me here in Calgary....

That does seem like quite a lot for (up to?) a couple of coffee mugs from Florida...   

[mnementh]

   

We COULD put together a group buy with us, torinofermic and Kosmic... but that's still $25 EACH just to get them to ME, before shipping them along. effing OWWW and a half.

mnem
 

[Neomys Sapiens]

That 199 appears to be in great condition. Does it happen to have a scanner card in it? That'd be a bonus.

I like these old Keithley DMMs with the big LED displays. I have a 196.

Will check, thanks.... what does that do?

It enables you to connect the meter to multiple measurement points and sample them sequentially. It's a trade off between the cost and space of using multiple meters to see everything vs. just one meter and not being able to see multiple measurements simultaneously.

There can be setbacks though. For example, on the Prema 6001 the presence of the scanner card limits you to 100V and you can't remove it without recalibration.

[bitseeker]

That 199 appears to be in great condition. Does it happen to have a scanner card in it? That'd be a bonus.

I like these old Keithley DMMs with the big LED displays. I have a 196.

Not sure, will need to open it, bit if i look on the back, there is a huge green stip i can connect stuff to...not sure wat it does either..will look for docs.

Just looked at that 196, thats a cool meter!

It sounds like it might have the scanner card. Post some pics if you get a chance. I haven't seen a scanner card for the 199 before, only for the 2700 (DMM & scanner) and 705/706 (scanner only).

The 196 is a nice meter, though I've heard it's not as stable as the 34401A. Nevertheless, it'd be even nicer if it was smaller like the 199.

[mnementh]

Shipping: $33.18 for 2 International Priority Shipping to Canada  via the Global Shipping Program

 

It says it would be $38.00 for 2 to me here in Calgary....

That does seem like quite a lot for (up to?) a couple of coffee mugs from Florida...   

I showed it to my wife... she made it a birthday present and had it shipped to her mother in Tejas. Sed mum has a birthday present on the way for me already, and she’d just mail ‘em together. 

mnem
Why are the scales on the back of my neck standing straight up...? *wibble*