Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Brumby]

Just browsing eBay and came across an ad which immediately resonated with my recent experience here...



Don't want to tell you what they looked like to me......

[Neomys Sapiens]

@Cerebus:
That's what Sakia means:

Ta, I'll  have a watch later.

"Die Kuh Elsa" is a comedy sketch from Dieter Hallervorden (comedian in the 70's in Germany).
The joke lies in the conversation which becomes more and more surreal. Some elements in this sketch
may remind to some sketches from Monty Python.

I think it was you that originally brought it up last time by saying something along the lines of "One of my staff came in and told me XYZ was broken. Turned out he was doing a 'The Cow Elsa' on me. ...".

That would have been me.

[0culus]

Keithley 2002 8.5 digits multimeter ?

Wait.... What?!

There's such a thing as an 8½ digit multimeter?!   

Ah, geez...  What kind of rock have I been living under?!

Am I really that old?!

(Or, alternatively, what kind of TEA member am I?!     )

The HP 3458A (which keysight is actually making again, RoHS compliant now) is the gold standard 8.5 digit meter. 8.5 digits is seldom useful outside of specialist voltnut applications, but 8.5 digit meters do have the advantage of being ultra fast fewer-digit meters.

ok obi wan.  am hoping you will step up and say something like....."this is not the calculator you seek".

The TIs are not the calculators you seek.


Your heart secretly yearns for the enter key.

[Cerebus]

Casio you will use
And contented you will be

[0culus]

I rearranged my lab so all the instruments I want on the distribution amplifier are in close proximity now. Only problem is now I have a 10 MHz radiator.  Narrowed it down to one coax in particular....will be replacing ASAP.

[Cerebus]

@Cerebus:
That's what Sakia means:

Ta, I'll  have a watch later.

"Die Kuh Elsa" is a comedy sketch from Dieter Hallervorden (comedian in the 70's in Germany).
The joke lies in the conversation which becomes more and more surreal. Some elements in this sketch
may remind to some sketches from Monty Python.

I think it was you that originally brought it up last time by saying something along the lines of "One of my staff came in and told me XYZ was broken. Turned out he was doing a 'The Cow Elsa' on me. ...".

That would have been me.

Sorry for the misattribution. I'm gonna blame the heat (still 30 in the house, which is why I'm still up, or more accurately up again).

I was being a little thick earlier. Over concerned with concentrating trying to follow the sung lyrics in the video Saskia pointed to I completely missed the whole Russian anthem music bit. Anyway, I thought I'd go back and have another crack. I turned on the (YouTube autogenerated) subtitles to see if that would give me an edge. Lordy, they're bad. If I, with a tin ear for German, can tell that they are completely wrong and that they only correctly catch maybe one word in three then they must be really really bad.

[mnementh]

...ok.  hp calculators are not my thing.  but wikipedia is my friend.   am pretty sure it was an hp35s.  so it is modern and is switchable from rpn to algebraic entry.   that just seems wrong.   here in central pa we pick a team and stay with it for better or worse.  why would i want a flip floppin' calculator?

Ayup. Win, lose, or suck; once a Steelers fan, ALWAYS a Steelers fan. 

mnem
Church.

[AVGresponding]

Not really. It's more like 5½ digits, with a slot machine rolling round & round & round on the end... 

mnem
Unless they're fixing it "in the software"...

5½ digits. Uhuh.

Even with my normal crap setup I get usable readings down to 6.5 digits, and if I can be bothered to arrange things properly, 7.5 digits are possible.
Not sure I could be arsed with making 8.5 digit readings possible in a home environment though. Besides, do you realise how much calibration costs on something that precise?   

[tggzzz]

was dropping off my recycles.  decided to pop into the thrift store next door.

horror of horrors.  found an hp35 in the calculator box......for almost nothing.

you guys must be messin' up my mind.  actually thought about "taking a walk on the wild side".

turned and walked to the exit without looking back.

will not darken their door again until i am almost certain the horrid thing is gone.

Why not be really nasty, and send it to someone[1] without paying for the postage, so they have to pay double.

[1]Me for example

seems like a pretty risky proposition.  would not want my fingerprints or dna on that damn thing.

Nowadays it is socially acceptable (even praiseworthy) to be wearing gloves in shops

edit    ok.  hp calculators are not my thing.  but wikipedia is my friend.   am pretty sure it was an hp35s.  so it is modern and is switchable from rpn to algebraic entry.   that just seems wrong.   here in central pa we pick a team and stay with it for better or worse.  why would i want a flip floppin' calculator?

Oh, it has a bozo mode. Not interested

[VK5RC]

Casio you will use
And contented you will be

HP Calculator to TI calculator ' I am your father'

[Specmaster]

FML. Hottest day of the year, some cunt is having a fire in their garden down the road so all the windows are shut and my youngest drops her unobtainium jellycat toy on top of a giant steamer in the toilet ffs. 

Kids, man. 

Yeah, true, but the "giant steamer" smacks more of a man with an unhealthy obsession with sausages than a little girl. Methinks the sausophile may have  at least some culpability in the whole affair.   

Hmm, sausages ...

Have you ever seen a chihuahua turd? If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that the evolution of biology has produced no strong correlation between the size of the culprit and the size of the deposit.

I do rather like sausages and am having them for dinner tomorrow courtesy of my eldest who has chosen this to cook as it’s her turn: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/sausage-kale-hash

Edit: jellycat strawberry, no less than the most absorbent thing in the history of the universe has been hand washed through three times now, dried out being rolled in a towel and is hanging upside down off a coat hanger like a medieval torture victim. If it was not an inanimate object it would be emotionally scarred.

`
I couldn't help but laugh my arse off when I read that just before I went bed. Reading it again this morning reminded me of the craze that some kids went through a few years ago where they would photo their steamer on their phone and email it off to a site that I seem to recall was called "Rate my Poo" for others to comment on 

[Robert763]

Not really. It's more like 5½ digits, with a slot machine rolling round & round & round on the end... 

mnem
Unless they're fixing it "in the software"...

5½ digits. Uhuh.

Even with my normal crap setup I get usable readings down to 6.5 digits, and if I can be bothered to arrange things properly, 7.5 digits are possible.
Not sure I could be arsed with making 8.5 digit readings possible in a home environment though. Besides, do you realise how much calibration costs on something that precise?   

Calibration, another ADANTAGE of some high resolution meters. My Solartron 7071 7.5 / 8.5 digit  (same as 7081 except for Vref "processing") is offically "calibrated for life" at 3 times the 1 year accuracy. That's 60ppm (no counts as they re insignificant)  or 0.006% on DCV. The HP 34401A / 34461A 6.5 digit is 35 PPM after a year.
So I have a DMM that is signifcantly better than any 5.5 digit (good as many 6.5) meters that NEVER needs calibration to officially meet that specification. As a bonus it has 8.5 digit resolution for comparatve measurements.

[FransW]

Even with my normal crap setup I get usable readings down to 6.5 digits, and if I can be bothered to arrange things properly, 7.5 digits are possible.
Not sure I could be arsed with making 8.5 digit readings possible in a home environment though. Besides, do you realise how much calibration costs on something that precise?   
[/quote]

and you would have to move your TE surroundings to a climate controlled environment.
Succes guarenteed.
Regards, Frans

[Specmaster]

If it still sucks like it is right now, currently 32c in my lab I don't think I'll be on discord this evening, Probably be catching up on some sleep by dropping in and out of cat naps. Thats about all I seem to be doing in this heat, and waking up in a pool of sweat, even with the fan high all night long, not a good thing  Seems that my body just shuts down when it gets so hot, I can appreciate what Mnenmenth  just how he must have felt when down in Texas 

[bd139]

Yeah same. No discord for me. Actually no today for me. I’m going back to bed 

[med6753]

The sound you hear is the cool and comfort of my A/C with a room temperature of 22 C. 

Edit....more outside temps of 30 + expected this coming week.

[Robert763]

Sooo glad we fitted air-air heat pumps last year With the English climate the heating savings pretty much cancel out the cooling cost in summer.

[bd139]

It’s only hot for about two weeks here. It’s cheaper to just suffer it. Plus we’re not a bunch of pussies. They all left on boats for the US and bought air conditioners 

[med6753]

Heat pumps are very popular down south...say in the Carolina's, etc but they don't work well in this NY climate because it gets too cold in the Winter for them to work well. They require an additional electric heating element to make up the difference which ruins their efficiency. 

An alternative is a ground water to air heat pump but they are damn expensive.

[med6753]

It’s only hot for about two weeks here. It’s cheaper to just suffer it. Plus we’re not a bunch of pussies. They all left on boats for the US and bought air conditioners 

If you guys aren't pussies then how come all the bitching about the heat?  What about this "stiff upper lip" stuff?   

Besides, being comfortable ain't being a pussy. You're just jealous. 

[bd139]

Whining is a national sport here 

[med6753]

Whining is a national sport here 

Then go buy a case of cheese and have a "whine" and cheese party. 

[Specmaster]

Trouble really is not so much the heat as the high humidity that comes with it over here, after a while the fans become ineffective really as the air is already laden with moisture so the fans cease to dry your sweat up. With A/C, it just seems to wick away much more moisture, but like BD said it is so expensive over here to install it for just maybe 2 weeks a year when it would be used. 

I have thought about sitting and also sleeping in the car before but I'm pretty sure that neighbours would object to having a diesel engine running all night long 

Edit:
Plus of course, as one gets older, one cannot handle the heat as well as we used to when we were teens, most of us oldies are carrying too much extra weight, I know I am and nothing seems to shift it either 

[bd139]

Completely agree. My air con in the car has a leak so there’s no escape like that for me  . Best option is probably creeping off up the road and sleeping out in the open.

Just got a red reminder letter from RSGB dressed up like it was some overdue tax bill ffs. Bunch of clowns. Shredded!

Edit: might try sleeping out tonight. Have a nice new tent to play with 

[AVGresponding]

Calibration, another ADANTAGE of some high resolution meters. My Solartron 7071 7.5 / 8.5 digit  (same as 7081 except for Vref "processing") is offically "calibrated for life" at 3 times the 1 year accuracy. That's 60ppm (no counts as they re insignificant)  or 0.006% on DCV. The HP 34401A / 34461A 6.5 digit is 35 PPM after a year.
So I have a DMM that is signifcantly better than any 5.5 digit (good as many 6.5) meters that NEVER needs calibration to officially meet that specification. As a bonus it has 8.5 digit resolution for comparatve measurements.

I don't think 0.006% basic DCV accuracy is "significantly better" than the 0.005% basic DCV accuracy of my 5.5 digit Fluke 8840A. Which doesn't drift. They just don't. At least, not so's you'd notice.

The problem with 8.5 digits as regards practical measuring is more to do with noise introduced to the signal by the setup. It's not really an issue with 5.5 or 6.5 digits, unless your lab is inside an smps anyway, but it starts to become so for 7.5, and is a major problem at 8.5 digits.

I also doubt whether a figure of 0.006% would satisfy any serious metrologist. That lot get grumpy at lack of precision at orders of magnitude better than that!

Lastly, for traceablilty purposes, if I was doing something that required an 8.5 digit meter, I'd want it calibrated every year. Luckily I don't, so I can save my pennies for buying more crusty TE.