Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

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 

Honestly, I can't decide which is worse... in Tejas AC is not a luxury, it's survival gear. And all but a very rare few 1d10ts grok this in fullness, so it's reasonable to expect the AC to work properly.

Up here, the attitude is like... "Oh, what? You're paying for the AC running constantly, but it's still 76-78°F in your bedroom overnight? Oh well; it's only for a month or so." like there's nothing wrong with that at all. 

Meanwhile I wake up every morning with a migraine, more exhausted than when I went to bed. After a week or so of this you lose all sense of humor and are just operating in shuffling-zombie mode. 

mnem
grr. arrg. 

[mnementh]

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?   

I knew it! You too can lose those unnecessary digits; just put your mind to it friend! The VoltMutt side passes no judgement on those who've dabbled in voltnuttery, and we will always welcome those who've come to their senses with open arms! 

Pretty much the only thing we won't tolerate is digit envy/digit shaming, and we have breakfast tacos.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

Meh.....just flip the switch and turn on the A/C. Screw sleeping in a tent. 

Now you're really rubbing salt in the wound aren't you, knowing we can't. You know that is about the only thing I miss, having retired, is that when we all had to attend meetings back at HQ, we had a couple of nights away in a nice A/C hotel room, sheer bliss on a hot night 

[mnementh]

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.

Okay.... dumb question (no seriously, please ELI5); can that really apply to any electronic device that is now pushing what... 40 years old? At some point your confidence in that promise has to be overridden by the uncertainty factor of a device that has been around for so long.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

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 

That's not as far-fetch'd as it sounds. Especially since we've started packing and moving, it has become pretty much a regular thing for all of us to pile in the car in the mid-afternoon and go to DQ or Tim Horton's or McD's and get cold drinks for the grups (iced tea is pretty much the only thing at McD's that's edible, IMHO) and ice cream for the kiddles. We'll sit in the parking lot with the AC on MAX and gabble; watching and laughing at all the yuppies going by so intent on their oh-so-important business. 

mnem
 

[bd139]

Well it works. All three inputs are good and working. I have no frequency standard to calibrate it by (yet).

LEDs look better through human eyes than phone. Measuring pulse width:



Tidy insides. No RIFAs!



Date codes point to aropund 1985.

[med6753]

Walk cancelled. Surprisingly my 5316A is out for delivery today. Fingers crossed

So now all we have to do is work out a test that can distinguish whether or not you have gone mad. I like a challenge

No test needed. I am clinically insane.

5316A arrived. Eating lunch first before I open the box.

Place your bets: It’s ex MoD and has channel C. Hopefully it has a TCXO or OCXO in it. MoD used to buy them with them in when they needed 1GHz.

Edit: fairly clean. Basic oscillator  . Gives me an excuse to build an OCXO for it

[mnementh]

Meh.....just flip the switch and turn on the A/C. Screw sleeping in a tent. 

Now you're really rubbing salt in the wound aren't you, knowing we can't. You know that is about the only thing I miss, having retired, is that when we all had to attend meetings back at HQ, we had a couple of nights away in a nice A/C hotel room, sheer bliss on a hot night 

Yeah... one really annoying thing about modern construction is that casement windows are pretty much a global epidemic; it's been 30 years since I lived anywhere you could easily stick a cheap AC unit in a window to make your bedroom a chillbox.

mnem
Some of the old ways really weren't that bad.

[med6753]

Meh.....just flip the switch and turn on the A/C. Screw sleeping in a tent. 

Now you're really rubbing salt in the wound aren't you, knowing we can't. You know that is about the only thing I miss, having retired, is that when we all had to attend meetings back at HQ, we had a couple of nights away in a nice A/C hotel room, sheer bliss on a hot night 

Yeah... one really annoying thing about modern construction is that casement windows are pretty much a global epidemic; it's been 30 years since I lived anywhere you could easily stick a cheap AC unit in a window to make your bedroom a chillbox.

mnem
Some of the old ways really weren't that bad.

That's what I have. Window A/C in the bedroom. If I were to close the bedroom door and crank it on high it would get cold enough in there to hang meat. 

Hand me the salt.......LMAO

[med6753]

I have at least four 500 series plug-in's that use these little buggers and luckily all the same type (7586). So I figure it would be a good idea to have some spares on hand. Can't beat that price. 

[Specmaster]

I see no need to get my 8840 recalibrated. I had it done once, when I  bought it, a sensible precaution to my mind. As I said, these guys just don't drift (unless you abuse them).

If you got a 7071 for the price I paid for my 8840, that's serious jammy git territory. I've never seen one for less than 3 times that, or I'd already have one! Those blue dot matrix vfd's are lovely... 

I don't see how comments about noise can be spurious; there's more to noise free measurement than just using good leads. I'd argue saying that you can switch down to 6.5 or 5.5 digits is a better candidate for that category, as the point I was making is that achieving worthwhile 8.5 digit measurements requires a great deal of care and attention to detail in your setup.

Maybe I didn't make my point clear. While I'm not saying your Fluke 8840 will suddenly become inaccurate 366 days after calibration, clearly it won't, BUT Fluke say it cannot provide traceable measurements to 0.006% (20V range) more than a year after calibration. Conversely Solartron specfically say the 7071 CAN provide traceable measurements to 0.006% for life. I have a 5.5 digit meter that is traceable forever 
I've actually used one in a controlled workshop environment (aerospace) based on this. The Das Veritas auditor complained but after refering it to their metrology SME conceeded it was OK.
I Paid £135 inc shipping for my 7071 and less than £50 each for my 7075s. That included two leads 

The 8840A is essentially a 6.5 digit meter in terms of accuracy and fluke say that it is 0.005% on the 2vdc, correct but it states that it is 0.006% on 20 and 200vdc and goes out to 0.007& on the 1,000vdc @1year. The 8842A is essentially the same accuracy but that the calibration is good for 2 years. I can honestly say that Flukes generally do not drift out of spec unless they haver had a very hard life and been abused. I, too, am a fan of the lovely blue digits on the 7071, but man, it takes way too much real estate for my liking.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

[Robert763]

Robert,

Audits normally do not bother about the need of your equipment.
They check whether the equipment is used correctly or not and
whether international norms and standards are correctly followed
or not.
Not why. That you have to justify yourself.

Frans

Have to disagree,
Never saw a modern (ISO 9000, AS9100 etc) audit that looked at how equipment was used (mores the pity) just that you have proceedures and follow them. One general requirement of most internationally recognised quailty systems is that measurment equipment is appropriately calibrated. Checking dates on cal labels is an easy catch for an auditor. Expecting a 1 year cal cycle (like most of the other kit) this guy complaned about a 5 year old cal sticker.
Pet peeve of mine is "calibrating" bench power supplies just because they have meters. The accuracy of the meters on PSUs is not good enough for many tasks so marking them calibrted incourages in-appropriate use. Any accredited workshop I was invovled with has PSU meters marked "Indication Only" with standing instructions that DMMs were to be used for checking.

[Specmaster]

Meh.....just flip the switch and turn on the A/C. Screw sleeping in a tent. 

Now you're really rubbing salt in the wound aren't you, knowing we can't. You know that is about the only thing I miss, having retired, is that when we all had to attend meetings back at HQ, we had a couple of nights away in a nice A/C hotel room, sheer bliss on a hot night 

Yeah... one really annoying thing about modern construction is that casement windows are pretty much a global epidemic; it's been 30 years since I lived anywhere you could easily stick a cheap AC unit in a window to make your bedroom a chillbox.

mnem
Some of the old ways really weren't that bad.

That's what I have. Window A/C in the bedroom. If I were to close the bedroom door and crank it on high it would get cold enough in there to hang meat. 

Hand me the salt.......LMAO

Now I am ffing jelly 

[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 

That's not as far-fetch'd as it sounds. Especially since we've started packing and moving, it has become pretty much a regular thing for all of us to pile in the car in the mid-afternoon and go to DQ or Tim Horton's or McD's and get cold drinks for the grups (iced tea is pretty much the only thing at McD's that's edible, IMHO) and ice cream for the kiddles. We'll sit in the parking lot with the AC on MAX and gabble; watching and laughing at all the yuppies going by so intent on their oh-so-important business. 

mnem
 

Ditto, exactly the same thing here. I have just finished shampooing the carpet on the landing where it is now 35c and I was a huge sweaty mass by the time I had finished it, sweat was dripping of my grey beard .... hmm maybe I aught to change my signature, Med is not the only grey beard with attitude around here 

[mansaxel]

Well it works. All three inputs are good and working. I have no frequency standard to calibrate it by (yet).

LEDs look better through human eyes than phone. Measuring pulse width:



Tidy insides. No RIFAs!



Date codes point to aropund 1985.

Did you flip your GPS? You bragged about it being just taped to a window and working some 1000 posts ago. Mine did improve much by rising the antenna 3 metres, but still will need some TLC. Meinberg, to their credit, seem to be interested in my GPS performing well, even if it is discontinued, and quite old. I've gotten some email support, and am assembling a test case with data now. But its 10MHz is really nice to have, at times.

Yes, I've got counter envy. I want a device that'll compare inputs; my present counters won't.

[Mr. Scram]

Have to disagree,
Never saw a modern (ISO 9000, AS9100 etc) audit that looked at how equipment was used (mores the pity) just that you have proceedures and follow them. One general requirement of most internationally recognised quailty systems is that measurment equipment is appropriately calibrated. Checking dates on cal labels is an easy catch for an auditor. Expecting a 1 year cal cycle (like most of the other kit) this guy complaned about a 5 year old cal sticker.
Pet peeve of mine is "calibrating" bench power supplies just because they have meters. The accuracy of the meters on PSUs is not good enough for many tasks so marking them calibrted incourages in-appropriate use. Any accredited workshop I was invovled with has PSU meters marked "Indication Only" with standing instructions that DMMs were to be used for checking.

Iso 9001 audits are a sham. I don't know what I expected but I remember being thoroughly underwhelmed the first time I sat through one. Companies flaunting their iso 9001 certification are kind of hilarious.

[mnementh]

Meh.....just flip the switch and turn on the A/C. Screw sleeping in a tent. 

Now you're really rubbing salt in the wound aren't you, knowing we can't. You know that is about the only thing I miss, having retired, is that when we all had to attend meetings back at HQ, we had a couple of nights away in a nice A/C hotel room, sheer bliss on a hot night 

Yeah... one really annoying thing about modern construction is that casement windows are pretty much a global epidemic; it's been 30 years since I lived anywhere you could easily stick a cheap AC unit in a window to make your bedroom a chillbox.

mnem
Some of the old ways really weren't that bad.

That's what I have. Window A/C in the bedroom. If I were to close the bedroom door and crank it on high it would get cold enough in there to hang meat. 

Hand me the salt.......LMAO

Yeah; you don't realize how important a good night's sleep is until you miss a few in a row... *sigh*

mnem
*totes jelly*

[Kosmic]

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.

Okay.... dumb question (no seriously, please ELI5); can that really apply to any electronic device that is now pushing what... 40 years old? At some point your confidence in that promise has to be overridden by the uncertainty factor of a device that has been around for so long.

mnem
 

Good point Mnem.

I think Solartron marketing team was overly optimistic about their product when they came up with the "Calibrated for life" slogan. They were talking about 9 years accuracy when the meter was not even 2 years old 

[bd139]

Have to disagree,
Never saw a modern (ISO 9000, AS9100 etc) audit that looked at how equipment was used (mores the pity) just that you have proceedures and follow them. One general requirement of most internationally recognised quailty systems is that measurment equipment is appropriately calibrated. Checking dates on cal labels is an easy catch for an auditor. Expecting a 1 year cal cycle (like most of the other kit) this guy complaned about a 5 year old cal sticker.
Pet peeve of mine is "calibrating" bench power supplies just because they have meters. The accuracy of the meters on PSUs is not good enough for many tasks so marking them calibrted incourages in-appropriate use. Any accredited workshop I was invovled with has PSU meters marked "Indication Only" with standing instructions that DMMs were to be used for checking.

Iso 9001 audits are a sham. I don't know what I expected but I remember being thoroughly underwhelmed the first time I sat through one. Companies flaunting their iso 9001 certification are kind of hilarious.

This. I developed processes and documentation for ISO 9001. Total shit show. It incentivises everything other than quality.

[Kosmic]

Have to disagree,
Never saw a modern (ISO 9000, AS9100 etc) audit that looked at how equipment was used (mores the pity) just that you have proceedures and follow them. One general requirement of most internationally recognised quailty systems is that measurment equipment is appropriately calibrated. Checking dates on cal labels is an easy catch for an auditor. Expecting a 1 year cal cycle (like most of the other kit) this guy complaned about a 5 year old cal sticker.
Pet peeve of mine is "calibrating" bench power supplies just because they have meters. The accuracy of the meters on PSUs is not good enough for many tasks so marking them calibrted incourages in-appropriate use. Any accredited workshop I was invovled with has PSU meters marked "Indication Only" with standing instructions that DMMs were to be used for checking.

Iso 9001 audits are a sham. I don't know what I expected but I remember being thoroughly underwhelmed the first time I sat through one. Companies flaunting their iso 9001 certification are kind of hilarious.

This. I developed processes and documentation for ISO 9001. Total shit show. It incentivises everything other than quality.

Yep, I was also involved in the process at some point in my career and completely changed my view on ISO certifications 

[Robert763]

<SNIP>
[/quote]

Okay.... dumb question (no seriously, please ELI5); can that really apply to any electronic device that is now pushing what... 40 years old? At some point your confidence in that promise has to be overridden by the uncertainty factor of a device that has been around for so long.

mnem
 
[/quote]

Good point Mnem.

I think Solartron marketing team was overly optimistic about their product when they came up with the "Calibrated for life" slogan. They were talking about 9 years accuracy when the meter was not even 2 years old 
[/quote]

I don't know. Solartron were one of the earlist digital meter manufacturers, They had plenty of historical data to go on especially the 7070 series. I still have a 7040 with tiny calculator LED display that predates my Fluke 8020 and still works.

[Kosmic]

I see no need to get my 8840 recalibrated. I had it done once, when I  bought it, a sensible precaution to my mind. As I said, these guys just don't drift (unless you abuse them).

If you got a 7071 for the price I paid for my 8840, that's serious jammy git territory. I've never seen one for less than 3 times that, or I'd already have one! Those blue dot matrix vfd's are lovely... 

I don't see how comments about noise can be spurious; there's more to noise free measurement than just using good leads. I'd argue saying that you can switch down to 6.5 or 5.5 digits is a better candidate for that category, as the point I was making is that achieving worthwhile 8.5 digit measurements requires a great deal of care and attention to detail in your setup.

Maybe I didn't make my point clear. While I'm not saying your Fluke 8840 will suddenly become inaccurate 366 days after calibration, clearly it won't, BUT Fluke say it cannot provide traceable measurements to 0.006% (20V range) more than a year after calibration. Conversely Solartron specfically say the 7071 CAN provide traceable measurements to 0.006% for life. I have a 5.5 digit meter that is traceable forever 
I've actually used one in a controlled workshop environment (aerospace) based on this. The Das Veritas auditor complained but after refering it to their metrology SME conceeded it was OK.
I Paid £135 inc shipping for my 7071 and less than £50 each for my 7075s. That included two leads 

That's interesting. Do you know when your Solartron 7071 was last calibrated and the list of equipment that was used ? also when those pieces of equipment were last calibrated ?

[sokoloff]

“Before ISO-9001, we sometimes made crappy parts. After ISO-9001, we now consistently make crappy parts.”

[mansaxel]

Iso 9001 audits are a sham. I don't know what I expected but I remember being thoroughly underwhelmed the first time I sat through one. Companies flaunting their iso 9001 certification are kind of hilarious.

The problem is, that to correctly assess if an organisation does it job, the assessor must be competent in all facets of what the organisation does. Such people are quite rare, and to boot, rarely can be arsed to do things so utterly improductive as audits.

Therefore, the work-around is to establish a form with a number of GO/NOGO tick boxes, and then have a lobotomy patient (ie. "Auditor") ask questions he does not understand, receive answers that must conform to the text on the form (preferably "yes", of course) and fail the organisation as soon as there's something that differs between the overly simplistic form and reality.

The end result, that competent, productive people end up being bullied by morons, is quite familiar to management, so is not a cause for concern.

In the end, the "standards organisations" (like the corrupt gatekeepers Cerebus spoke about) get to extract protection money through the process, because caring for and feeding the asylum where auditors are kept surely must be expensive.

Calibration labs, H&S equipment sales persons, Aircraft spare part vendors, people selling spares and consumables for life jackets; they all have a "compliance" -fuelled license to print money. Not that it is expensive and important to maintain high quality, but when you have a third party that must certify things, the price has a tendence to double, simply because it can.

Case in point: I just performed inspection on our automatic life jackets. The trigger mechanism has a shelf life specified, and some of our vests expired their triggers this summer. I've had some spare triggers in storage, and found an unused one that expired 2017. It took all of 2 seconds in water to trig it. Now, it's been stored in optimum conditions, but still.

[Mr. Scram]

“Before ISO-9001, we sometimes made crappy parts. After ISO-9001, we now consistently make crappy parts.”

I think that's almost exactly what I here said a while ago.  That's if everything that goes into 9001 works out as intended, which it doesn't. Not even close.