Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cerebus]

I just realised that a 1N4148 that was soldered across a 24V relay coil had turned into a 2Ω resistor. The PSU did not want to pull the lever but instead pulled itself into CC mode. Removed diode complete and without messing with the leads because I wanted to test it out of circuit. Once out I tried the relay and it sure enough works. The de-energising kick from the now undioded relay coil that found its way into my fingers actually hurt a little. We need those diodes, indeed.

When I was a kid I used to wire up a relay as an oscillator and use that little inductive kick to zap people

When I see tales of your youth, and remember mine, I'm always surprised that we didn't end up at what the 'foreigners' here might naïvely think was a good school - an approved one.

[Saskia]

which is one of the reasons you find so many diodes soldered across coils within a pinball machine ...

[BU508A]

bd139 can be easily entertained. And so am I, too.    

[mansaxel]

The reason I was wrestling with IS<->IS was a consequence of being a very early IPv6 adopter (including native multicast for IPv6 and IPv4, but that's a different story). It's just the incongruity of working with a routing protocol on an IP network that doesn't really want to believe that is it on an IP network. RIP was a nightmare, but I had to deal with it at the edge - because customers. MPLS has its good and bad points - if I were to be the one writing a layer 3 replacement for IP I would use a label switching protocol at its core, but not MPLS as is.

Yes, it is different. I think of IS-IS as "that more or less OOB (wrt IP routing table) hop-by-hop thing that keeps track of my links" and thus usually restrain IS-IS signalling to backbone links and passive loopbacks;  nothing more, all in one area (Vijay Gill at AOL did OSPF->IS-IS there with one global area, so with reasonably new iron it scales) and no edge nets in the table at all, just the loopbacks and links. Key is convergence and a fast one at that. You can recover from a link failure in as little as 200ms on a country-wide net; the limiting factor is that we now run SDH signalling (ie. BFD) on top of Ethernet, because "GNU/systemd x64 virtual machines running HTTP over NATed v4 and strangely named Ethernet cards" is the only thing those unsupervised glue-sniffers with their microservices understand.

Yes, I'm feeling old, and I'm turning 51 next week.

[tggzzz]

Latest acquisition is on test. Currently it agrees with my voltage standard to within 1.7ppm. It will be interesting to see how it behaves overnight.

I had measured my voltage standard for free, with an hp3458a that had been calibrated against a national primary standard 24hours earlier. Well free is an exaggeration; I paid £80 for a weekend in Hannover

Since pictures are required...

[med6753]

Like bd I'm not going to be around much for the next few days. And definitely won't be on Discord tomorrow. Yesterday after nearly 8 months of no contact the Lady Cop and I talked. It was my choice to break off all contact. But yesterday I let her plead her case. I'm partially, but not totally, convinced that she is regretful of the antics she has pulled in the past and realizes how it damages our relationship. But that remains to be seen. Anyway, she is coming up here to spend the weekend. And we'll take it from there.   

[Saskia]

good luck.

[bd139]

Good luck med. I don’t envy you.

I did a pros and cons of new relationships spreadsheet and said fuck it and started buying more HP power supplies 

[capt bullshot]

I did a pros and cons of new relationships spreadsheet and said fuck it and started buying more HP power supplies 

WTF (worse than failure)

[Saskia]

question to the masses:

are you folks interested in audiophoolery repairs ? I have a few appliances which need to be looked at and could share this with you. One of the topics is the Sony TA-E 86 with one channel dead, I also have 2 dead CD Players which I could try to revive (even though chances are slim).

[FransW]

Not all repairs open a way to entertain sustainability.
Some are not worth it.
So, decide on the amount of added value, for yourself or for others.

Added value also in the sense of time-spending.
It always is so limited (for humans).

Frans

[mansaxel]

question to the masses:

are you folks interested in audiophoolery repairs ? I have a few appliances which need to be looked at and could share this with you. One of the topics is the Sony TA-E 86 with one channel dead, I also have 2 dead CD Players which I could try to revive (even though chances are slim).

Bring it on! I'm sort of amassing courage to take on my Sony 1HE pro CD player. It boots some of the time, but not all. And it tracks badly on discs.

[bd139]

Today cleared up a bit. Found myself with considerably less workload than expected. New German toys arrived 

This was mostly purchased to get the arms off my desk chair which would not budge with current tools 



That 10mm one is flipping huge!

[capt bullshot]

question to the masses:

are you folks interested in audiophoolery repairs ? I have a few appliances which need to be looked at and could share this with you. One of the topics is the Sony TA-E 86 with one channel dead, I also have 2 dead CD Players which I could try to revive (even though chances are slim).

Bring it on! I'm sort of amassing courage to take on my Sony 1HE pro CD player. It boots some of the time, but not all. And it tracks badly on discs.

Might be as simple as cleaning the lenses. Very long time ago, I've actually repaired my (JVC afair) CD player by re-adjusting the optics or similar (don't know how I managed this, most probably just because I didn't know it's not possible without the special fixture). Next attempt on some other CD player failed, next one I've just bought a new laser optics assembly and replaced it, just to have it fail later on again. The flex cable had to be replaced, too. Today, I just don't use CD players anymore.

[Saskia]

@bd139

there are certainly other means to remove the arms off a chair 

@FransW I concur, especially when it comes to swapping out a laser pickup which is absolutely unobtainium.
However for the preamp it is most certainly worth it.

And are we not all waiting for Walhalla and Ragnarök ?

[bd139]

@bd139

there are certainly other means to remove the arms off a chair 

I want the chair and the arms to survive the operation though 

[Zucca]

question to the masses:

are you folks interested in audiophoolery repairs ? I have a few appliances which need to be looked at and could share this with you. One of the topics is the Sony TA-E 86 with one channel dead, I also have 2 dead CD Players which I could try to revive (even though chances are slim).

EDIT: Interesting would be also to understand how you measure if the device passes the audiophoolery quality check after the repair.

[mnementh]

I hate those days where this red, flashing 'BULLSHIT' alarm inside your head just above your external field of view goes off repeatedly. But worse is the blaring klaxon that comes with it.
When one device A with Software A' can communicate flawlessly with the target device and device B with software B' can't do that, it is obvious that the culprit is the (HW) interface converter, which is totally dumb and transparent, right? And the reason is that it is newly developed hardware.
And when 5 friggin' lazy SW bozos keep repeating it, it must be true, right?
No. Simply no.

Maybe I need to get some advice from Saskia on some topics. Like:
- can I reuse the sponges despite Covid?
- should the persons involved become connected in series or parallel?

It would appear that the heavenly host prefers series-parallel to maximize effectiveness and coverage.

mnem

I prefer one of these to get people's attention. Quite effective; even over EtherNet. 

[Specmaster]

Like bd I'm not going to be around much for the next few days. And definitely won't be on Discord tomorrow. Yesterday after nearly 8 months of no contact the Lady Cop and I talked. It was my choice to break off all contact. But yesterday I let her plead her case. I'm partially, but not totally, convinced that she is regretful of the antics she has pulled in the past and realizes how it damages our relationship. But that remains to be seen. Anyway, she is coming up here to spend the weekend. And we'll take it from there.   

Take it carefully, by the sound of it, you don't need to make any concessions at all. Just see what transpires. 

[Zucca]

Since pictures are required...

Do you like the 34410a? Is the fan too loud?

Thanks!

[Zucca]

Edit: gah did it. Now own an Agilent banded E3630  . May bounce the 6205 now.

Well done, approved. DO NOT SELL ANY TTi.

[mansaxel]

Today cleared up a bit. Found myself with considerably less workload than expected. New German toys arrived 

This was mostly purchased to get the arms off my desk chair which would not budge with current tools 



That 10mm one is flipping huge!

Good with new tools, and Wera is always dependable. To get those really pesky inbus/Allen/hex head screws out I usually employ 1/2" or 1/4" socket sets, with inbus/Allen/hex inserts, like so:



There's considerably more force available that way.  I probably should get inch fraction sockets too; I've only got inch fractions in the usual L style. Also, I've got 7mm hex socket tools, which are an absolute must if one wants to do car brakes.

[Specmaster]

@bd139

there are certainly other means to remove the arms off a chair 

I doubt that much of the chair or the arm would remain after the application of you're referred tool, 50gms of C-4, although BD would approve of this, I don't think total destruction is his aim here 

[Specmaster]

Edit: gah did it. Now own an Agilent banded E3630  . May bounce the 6205 now.

Well done, approved. DO NOT SELL ANY TTi.

Too late PL320 has gone already 

Edit, I love all my TTi gear.

[mnementh]

@Zucca don't volunteer for stuff like that. It will be yours forever and you will get the blame forever.

Master Yoda says: "Idealistic young man he is. Lots of python strengths he has."

Learn he must. Not ready he is. Life experience he must collect.

"There's enough misery to go around without grabbing for more." ~grand-momma Kate

mnem
alt: "No good deed goes unpunished."