Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Jesus fucking Christ. Not usually one to post stuff like this but this was one hell of an explosion https://mobile.twitter.com/BNONews/status/1290678928093454336

Jesus thats one hell of an explosion, its a wonder thats any building hit by that shock wave is still standing. It tossed cars being driven around as if they made of paper.  Reports my son is receiving suggest that the first blast was either a fireworks factory or warehouse and the second one with the mushroom cloud was a ship in the docks laden with LNG. I expect there will be massive casualties and fatalities after that. Thoughts are with the many families that are going to be affected by this.

[Saskia]

Ultrasonic ?
Sandblasting ?
CO2 blasting ?

In other news I won a tape deck on ebay.

tbh, the RX don't even come close to the 1000zxl, 700zx, 682, 680, CR7E, ZX9. I could bite mahself in my rear to have sold my 2 680ZX and the external Dolby C.

So currently I am down to the RX505 and the MR-1 while waiting for the RX202 to arrive.

I am still waiting for feedback on my offer for a Threshold S/250.

Yup, audiophoolery at its finest.
There was a Nakamichi turntable on ebay classifieds, however I am not going to spend 4500 on that.


its bigger brother, the RX505, is already sitting here. They are asking crazy prices for those Nakamichi decks, I paid 750 for the RX550, and now they are past 1000 ...

Well, if you must have what was considered to be the best tape decks in the world, what else did you expect, Nakamichi were considered to the Rolls Royce of HiFi tape decks, in fact anything with their name was never cheap by default. 

[Saskia]

Jesus fucking Christ. Not usually one to post stuff like this but this was one hell of an explosion https://mobile.twitter.com/BNONews/status/1290678928093454336

Jesus thats one hell of an explosion, its a wonder thats any building hit by that shock wave is still standing. It tossed cars being driven around as if they made of paper.  Reports my son is receiving suggest that the first blast was either a fireworks factory or warehouse and the second one with the mushroom cloud was a ship in the docks laden with LNG. I expect there will be massive casualties and fatalities after that. Thoughts are with the many families that are going to be affected by this.

Beirut harbor is said to be controlled by Hezbollah. Could be that one of their ammo stores went kaboom, especially as this does not look like a LNG explosion to me. Foul play not excluded, but I may be wrong.

[bd139]

Yeah that wasn’t fireworks. Looked like an ammo dump.

Edit: currently reckoned to be stores of ammonium nitrate. Yeaaaah bollocks. It’s what it was mixed with that’s interesting. Probably stored with a whole lot of fuel oil.

[Saskia]

Schlomo and Chaim are back home and will extend a toast to their country's good luck.

[Cerebus]

As mentioned by Robert763, the earlier units used plain die cast alu which was I think just hit with a polishing wheel for a bit. Probably humans involved in that.

Well, if you want to call a 300lb shop-gorilla with polishing wheel a human, yeah.

[Looks over shoulder to see if Adam "Abom79" has overheard me. ]

I don't think Abom is in the 300lb shopzilla class at all, not as defined by AvE nor anyone else in that community. Granted, his lathe cuts are a tad more aggressive than the Old Master (i.e. Keith Fenner), but, I think that's because Fenners lathe is a bit worn and requires some care to maintain 25.4µm precision.

Oh yeah? When he takes those 'light' 100 thou cuts you clearly haven't noticed that the does not have the power on, he's just flicking the chuck around with his pinky. 

Edited to add: In case it's not clear, I don't really regard Gorilla as an insult. A friend who's a zoologist once said to me:

"A chimpanzee will take something apart to see how it works, often by smashing it.
A gorilla will take something apart carefully to see how it works and, more often than not, put it back together.
An orang-utan will carefully take something apart to see how it works, puts it back together, and it will probably have made some improvements on the way."

[Saskia]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1290720709623320583

This was not the tanker, an ammo dump in a warehouse went supercritical.
Israel denies any involvement.

[BU508A]

@Mounty I may have a couple of old board games and RPGs sitting somewhere. I know that I have Macho Women with Guns, I may have a Traveller sitting somewhere, and may even have a Babylon 5 RPG rulebook (I would have to search).
Do you want me to have a closer look ?

I have no one who would play them with me, so they are somewhat redundant.

If you can send me a list of what you're having, then I'll have a look and check with some of my friends.
The B5 rulebook sounds interesting. Please let me know PM.

Thanks. 

[med6753]

Was watching TV but had to shut it down. Same with the A/C. Too many power dips. Those surges can damage stuff so they're off. Scanner is going nuts with calls for trees down, wires down, transformer explosions, etc. Such fun but obviously not like what just happen in Beruit. Holy shit, that was like a nuke going off. 

[Saskia]

The explosion seems to fast for ANFO if you ask me. Also it needs an igniter (e.g. a couple of sticks of dynamite).

[tonyalbus]

Raining like hell and wind is picking up. And a tornado watch has been issued until 2100 hours tonight. 

Tie yourself to a boat anchor quick 

Just found a suitable parts mule for HP knobs I think and it’s local buyer collects only and broken as hell so will go for virtually nothing. Tonyalbus: if I win it, I’ll send some your way.

 

[tonyalbus]

Yeah that wasn’t fireworks. Looked like an ammo dump.

Edit: currently reckoned to be stores of ammonium nitrate. Yeaaaah bollocks. It’s what it was mixed with that’s interesting. Probably stored with a whole lot of fuel oil.

our news says fireworks too... not so sure...

[bd139]

Anyone want a crust-o-meter 34401a?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174379420503

I’m almost tempted to make a shit offer 

[Saskia]

yep me, can you get it for me, please ? (may not ship to Germany)

[Cerebus]

Anyone want a crust-o-meter 34401a?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174379420503

I’m almost tempted to make a shit offer 

Yebus! Where did they keep it? A pigeon loft?

[Neomys Sapiens]

Yeah that wasn’t fireworks. Looked like an ammo dump.

Edit: currently reckoned to be stores of ammonium nitrate. Yeaaaah bollocks. It’s what it was mixed with that’s interesting. Probably stored with a whole lot of fuel oil.

Not necessary. See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion

Also, fireworks mean different things in different places. Chlorate-based charges in articles for the public are for example outlawed in Germany since around 45 years, but freely available in eastern europe.

[BU508A]

Anyone want a crust-o-meter 34401a?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174379420503

I’m almost tempted to make a shit offer 

Yieks!    I would not touch this thing, even with a very long stick!      

[Specmaster]

Well whatever it was that went up, it certainly did it in style, look at the aftermath, buildings have been flattened, windows smashed over a huge area, thats one hell of a mess to be cleaned up and many people will be adversely affected.

Meanwhile in other news, my switches have arrived so that I can get back on with my 7150 plus meters and finish off on the updating of the input jacks to accept standard shrouded leads.

In other news, off-topic but may be interesting, I have a small Karcher pressure washer but since my eldest son burrowed it to wash his car, I can't find the pressure hose and gun for it anymore in the garage because its a bloody tip in there. I was looking idly at Gumtree over the weekend and I saw this pressure washer listed for sale a few miles away from me for £25. It had been on there for a few weeks, so I rang the seller and did what everybody does to me, offered a lower amount of £20 which was accepted. The seller said that it made noises but did not pump any more and I thought that it was likely to be a simple fix.

Yesterday I tried it out and discovered that the gun had a leak and water was not quite gushing out, but was coming out pretty quickly without switching the pump on. Switching on the pump and it ran, stopped as pressure built-up without the trigger being squeezed, as normal then because the leak was happening, dropped, pump kicked in and the cycle repeated. This meant the 2.1kW motor was taking somewhere around 8 times its normal running current and was getting hot to the point, it stopped and just hummed.

Pulling the gun apart and the reason was easy to spot, there were the remains of an O ring laying inside the housing. Ordered a set of O rings from Amazon, they arrived today, new O ring fitted and gun re-assembled, pump all connected together and switched on bingo. It only now works perfectly and the beauty of it is the same pressure house also fits my old Karcher which has considerably less power though. So I can now wash my car at home and save a small fortune on car washes, not to mention £48 a year on having our wheelie bin cleaned by a mobile power washing company, once a month. So for a total outlay of just £25 with the O rings, I now have a massive pressure washer working at 12 bar. The upside of all this is going to be hopefully more cash for TEA 

[Saskia]

shit offer sounds ok to me. I have seen pinball machines that are n much worse condition.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Anyone want a crust-o-meter 34401a?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174379420503

I’m almost tempted to make a shit offer 

Yieks!    I would not touch this thing, even with a very long stick!      

Whoever is responsible for that should be forced to lick it clean.

[Cerebus]

Yeah that wasn’t fireworks. Looked like an ammo dump.

Edit: currently reckoned to be stores of ammonium nitrate. Yeaaaah bollocks. It’s what it was mixed with that’s interesting. Probably stored with a whole lot of fuel oil.

Not necessary. See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion

Also, fireworks mean different things in different places. Chlorate-based charges in articles for the public are for example outlawed in Germany since around 45 years, but freely available in eastern europe.

Ammonium nitrate makes a perfectly adequate explosive on its own, adding fuel oil (ANFO) or aluminium powder (Ammonal) just makes it better explosive. However, as an explosive it needs proper initiation from a detonator or an equivalent shock to make it explode. It won't explode from simple ignition or even something like a hammer blow to a pile of it on an anvil.

I'm for an explanation of happenstance combined with gross stupidity (e.g. storing ammonium nitrate anywhere even remotely near a stock of fireworks) unless solid evidence of malice comes forward.

[Saskia]

arabian fuckup is a valid explanation.

[Saskia]

Anyone want a crust-o-meter 34401a?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174379420503

I’m almost tempted to make a shit offer 

Yieks!    I would not touch this thing, even with a very long stick!      

Whoever is responsible for that should be forced to lick it clean.

that's what the 30l ultrasonic is for.
Disassemble it and toss it in (not the display, of course).

[Neomys Sapiens]

Question for all of you. What common object, other than a ruler, would one use for scale in a photograph that is universal? Yeah, a ruler works but it doesn't have that same visceral feel that, say, a box of matches does.

For the Brits, a standard box of matches would work, but the "standard box of matches" varies in size around the world. A packet of Gitanes is the same size the world over but most people don't have a pack of French Cancer Sticks to hand. A bunch of keys? Pretty universal but you don't really want to embed the key profile of your front door key in a photo for publication. I've been over a few other things in my mind and discounted all of them as not universal enough. Pencil? The ubiquitous Bic? Too long and thin. Cups and cutlery are too variable in size.

I finally hit on a standard pack of playing cards. Right kind of scale, the same size all over the world, something that fits in the hand.

So, can anyone else think of a common household object that is truly universal worldwide, and that fits the bill better than a pack of cards? Thoughts? Something obvious that I've missed?

- Giro card or similar magnet/chip combination card /only minuscule size differences possible due to international usage in ATMs)

- 4mm plug

- razor blade

- 3.5" disk

- CD case

All good ideas

Another possibility, which might be more useful than the cutting mats, would be to use the type of drawing paper with thin mm and slightly thicker cm graduation.

[AVGresponding]

Anyone want a crust-o-meter 34401a?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174379420503

I’m almost tempted to make a shit offer 

I offered £42, insta-declined.

yep me, can you get it for me, please ? (may not ship to Germany)

Happy to help with this if needed.