Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[factory]

@AVGresponding Regards to the seller situation, I'm still smelling that nasty whiff under my nose of BS. Come on, I'm sure that you have sold on eBay as well and when using PayPal, they don't tell you that funds are not yet cleared or will be in your account within so many hours. What happens is that the request for payment is fully automatic, the buyer clicks on the link to pay via PayPal and the rest is down to the buyer, who cannot screw it up. The seller, once the buyer has paid via PayPal, gets an email from PayPal telling him that you have paid and to dispatch the goods to the buyer.

The seller does not get the money transferred to his bank until he requests to transfer some or all of the money to his registered bank account and then it is done within minutes. I don't buy this bullshit that he is telling you for a single minute, it has all the hallmarks of a scam written all over it, especially seeing that he has already had a previous buyer for this meter, who it would seem, backed out of the deal, maybe they too were getting all this BS about not being able to get access to the money etc.

Run away and fight another day is my gut reaction to this deal.

ePay are also partly to blame as they no longer trust new sellers or users that haven't sold anything for a long time, they can hold the payment for a short period.
New sellers should really list some low value items to build up their reputation first, before listing higher value items like the bench DMM in question.
Once they have successfully sold enough items this BS limit gets removed from their account.

@AVGresponding I can't see any risk, you shouldn't have any problems getting your money back if they don't send the DMM.

David

P.S. anyone would think they are trying to discourage new users, once pissed off by ePay they will soon disappear to other selling sites.

[bd139]

Check Q1 and Q2 aren't borked and clean the switches out. They are the "front most" two transistors, one in the switches, one near the input jacks. I've had at least 2 8050A's where one of them is buggered or the switches are dirty that did that and worked fine afterwards.

Q1 & 2 are good. Switches all bell out good. Keep trying, I'll stick to my ADC theory, just cba to bugger about with scopes right now as I'm functioning on 1 hour of sleep in the last 2 days...

 

Ahh I'd fuck it off back onto ebay then 

[factory]

So schaffner filter arrived. Paid £2.49 for NOS. 2010 week 31. Risky or not?

Was there more than one at that price? Personally I wouldn't use them unless I had performed an autopsy of a recent production one and hadn't found any paper based capacitors inside.

David

[Cerebus]

So schaffner filter arrived. Paid £2.49 for NOS. 2010 week 31. Risky or not?

Easy to find out. Hold it up to your ear. If you hear ticking you're out of luck. 

[factory]

So I bid an won a HP DMM on ebay, not because I need another DMM or that it's anything special, a E2373A.
Just because I'm a TEA and my only other HP handheld DMM is a 3476 "tricorder" 

I put a very low bid on that one too, hopefully it's working & doesn't have any battery related corrosion, always a risk with meters that use AA's.

David

[bd139]

I had it on the watch list. That was as far as it went.

So schaffner filter arrived. Paid £2.49 for NOS. 2010 week 31. Risky or not?

Was there more than one at that price? Personally I wouldn't use them unless I had performed an autopsy of a recent production one and hadn't found any paper based capacitors inside.

David

Have gone up in price now. Perhaps paying for the postage scared the guy 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114327989308

[Specmaster]

I had it on the watch list. That was as far as it went.

So schaffner filter arrived. Paid £2.49 for NOS. 2010 week 31. Risky or not?

Was there more than one at that price? Personally I wouldn't use them unless I had performed an autopsy of a recent production one and hadn't found any paper based capacitors inside.

David

Have gone up in price now. Perhaps paying for the postage scared the guy 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114327989308

Even at the new price, they are still way cheaper than what I paid for the ones in my 7150's, but then those also were fused and housed a voltage selector, so they should be more expensive.

[factory]

I bought a non Schaffner one for my Tek 2465 at around £4 from RS last year, I needed another one a few months later, only problem RS had doubled the price.

David

[BU508A]

New video from The Signal Noise Path:

[bd139]

I bought a non Schaffner one for my Tek 2465 at around £4 from RS last year, I needed another one a few months later, only problem RS had doubled the price.

David

Yeah the original filter in this was an RS one dated 1989. Didn’t fancy my chances. I considered ordering one from RS but yep prices have gone through the roof and they have dropped free delivery now.

Honestly I’ve just had a massive eBay clear out and managed to end up with a reasonable wad of cash from it and am disinclined to lose it again by pissing it up the wall on RS markup and delivery (or all the other vendors  )

[Neomys Sapiens]

I want to measure the storage time of some fast diodes, but none of the pulse generators I have are fast enough.  I have a Colby PG1000A 1 GHz pulse generator with 200ps rise and fall times, but it does not have enough output amplitude swing to make diode measurements, so I bought this HP 8082A pulse generator I bought on fleabay for parts or repair. 
Chris

Thanks for the info on Colby - did not know them. Seems nice. But the problem of lacking amplitude is one well known to me. PG508 can drive up to +/-20V into an open circuit, but is probably too slow. PG502 can do +/-5V but I don't see those really coming out at 260MHz.

[khs]

Here some more voltage from the TEK High_Amplitude_Pulse_Generator.

The risetime of the pulse generator is better than 300 ps, but the 11A72 is limited to 1V div, so I used the slower 11A32 less sensitive plugin to show the voltage.

http://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/High_Amplitude_Pulse_Generator.

The schematic from  the pg509 (http://w140.com/smb/tek_pg509.pdf) is quite similar, so maybe it can be self made.

[mnementh]

Do you really want to open this Pandora's box? 

Already have, let's see if bd wants to fix the forum where he spends lotsa his time.
I'm sure he's got one of these and knows how to use it: 

Yes... If anyone here knows how to use a dead horse 🐎, it's bd. 

mnem
"When you find yourself astride a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount." - Lakota proverb

[bd139]

Someone’s got to powder them. Can’t just have dead horses lying around 

[Cerebus]

Powder? I assumed that some sort of barbecuing would be the order of the day. Or sausages...

[mnementh]

mnem
Literally the ONLY version I could find.

[bitseeker]

New video from The Signal Noise Path:

Yep, wouldn't you know it was the (spoiler ).

I wonder what kinds of non-TE will be showing up on TNP and if he already has a backlog of stuff that needs fixing that spawned the new series. Of course, it's also an opportunity to see more of his TE in action.

That Agilent benchtop LCR was a very TEA-worthy overkill for the task.

[mansaxel]

Oh you thought I had enough RPN calculators??? NEVER. 

 

Newest addition to the collection. $50 + shipping for the whole thing and he threw in a 12C financial calculator (not pictured). I couldn't say no.

That would fetch over the double and the 12c would be as much again on top here. Prices for Object Of Desire as discussed here are simply insane this side of the ditch.

As an example, on local auction site, a -hp- 42s in good condition, went for 2005 SEK, which is US$220, roughly.

https://www.tradera.com/item/1708/413496949/hp-42s-hewlett-packard-42s-miniraknare-kalkylator

[0culus]

Oh you thought I had enough RPN calculators??? NEVER. 

 

Newest addition to the collection. $50 + shipping for the whole thing and he threw in a 12C financial calculator (not pictured). I couldn't say no.

That would fetch over the double and the 12c would be as much again on top here. Prices for Object Of Desire as discussed here are simply insane this side of the ditch.

As an example, on local auction site, a -hp- 42s in good condition, went for 2005 SEK, which is US$220, roughly.

https://www.tradera.com/item/1708/413496949/hp-42s-hewlett-packard-42s-miniraknare-kalkylator

Any remotely desirable -hp- calc will fetch stupid prices, even here. Particularly a 35, especially if it's got the buggy ROM.

[0culus]

I'm taking a closer look at the Type 81 plug-in adapter I got with the 585A now that I have a manual for it. Basically, it is getting a full line voltage tap off the transformer primary, and it has it's own small transformer and bridge rectifier and power supply that is providing 75 Vdc for feeding series strung filaments (which many plugins use to tap other voltages off of by using the filaments as voltage dividers). Anyway, this is filtered by one of med's favorite cans...a 4 element 75 uF/150V apiece can. I suspect this is bad because every single one of the letter series plugins I have save for my Type Z exhibits horrible 60 Hz ripple that is all-pervasive. I suspect this is because the Type Z has it's own filtering going on, perhaps. Additionally, the Type 82 plug-in (which is made for the 585A and does not need the adapter) has zero problems.

Anyway, maybe tomorrow I will set it up and put a scope on that 75 volt rail and see if there's big ripple coming through, as I suspect there will be.

[bitseeker]

Fluke Alert

Dave spotted that AllTest has a bunch of Fluke 27 for $38 + shipping. https://www.ebay.com/itm/382616480372

As we've noted before, their packing is some of the best, especially for big TE. However, that level seems to be overkill for a single handheld DMM. Over $35 s/h for me. The total is so-so, all things considered (I see many have sold for $50-60 including shipping), but it's definitely no longer an impulse buy. Is it better for those of you located closer to them?

Ref: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/ebay-us-fluke-27-multimeters-cheap/

[med6753]

I'm taking a closer look at the Type 81 plug-in adapter I got with the 585A now that I have a manual for it. Basically, it is getting a full line voltage tap off the transformer primary, and it has it's own small transformer and bridge rectifier and power supply that is providing 75 Vdc for feeding series strung filaments (which many plugins use to tap other voltages off of by using the filaments as voltage dividers). Anyway, this is filtered by one of med's favorite cans...a 4 element 75 uF/150V apiece can. I suspect this is bad because every single one of the letter series plugins I have save for my Type Z exhibits horrible 60 Hz ripple that is all-pervasive. I suspect this is because the Type Z has it's own filtering going on, perhaps. Additionally, the Type 82 plug-in (which is made for the 585A and does not need the adapter) has zero problems.

Anyway, maybe tomorrow I will set it up and put a scope on that 75 volt rail and see if there's big ripple coming through, as I suspect there will be.

Ditch the can anyway even if it isn't the issue.....but sounds like it is.

Post up what you find.

[med6753]

Fluke Alert

Dave spotted that AllTest has a bunch of Fluke 27 for $38 + shipping. https://www.ebay.com/itm/382616480372

As we've noted before, their packing is some of the best, especially for big TE. However, that level seems to be overkill for a single handheld DMM. Over $35 s/h for me. The total is so-so, all things considered (I see many have sold for $50-60 including shipping), but it's definitely no longer an impulse buy. Is it better for those of you located closer to them?

Ref: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/ebay-us-fluke-27-multimeters-cheap/

$12.71 shipping for me. He's in Jersey and I'm NY so it's cheap.

But I'm not interested. The 87 takes care of my needs.

[BU508A]

New video from The Signal Noise Path:

Yep, wouldn't you know it was the (spoiler ).

I wonder what kinds of non-TE will be showing up on TNP and if he already has a backlog of stuff that needs fixing that spawned the new series. Of course, it's also an opportunity to see more of his TE in action.

That Agilent benchtop LCR was a very TEA-worthy overkill for the task.

 

Yes, same thoughts here. I had a good laugh when I spotted the Agilent measuring  the capacitor's ESR.
Well, one has to use what's just available at hand.   

[Zucca]

New video from The Signal Noise Path:

I just love him and his lab full of toys so much. Great YT channel, he deserves 1M sub.