Y'all may have noticed that the ol' TinkerDwagon hasn't been in here rousing the rabble all day...*
That's because he done wents on a road trip.
I met with fellow TEA member cyclin_al to trade off some of those Dell server PSUs I've been buggin' y'all with for some TE (which I'll post pics of tomorrow, I think) but mostly to chew the fat and have a burger and scope out some of the local color, what with the fall foliage and such.
That was quite the day! However, the story started earlier.
Our friendly dragon contacted me and asked if I was reasonably close to pick up the BK 4070A through a local buy & sell website. I was quite reasonably close if I had a hovercraft! Having to find a place to cross the Ottawa River by car made it appear to be a lengthy trip. Luck was on our side, as I was going that way to see about an Astrom PSU for sale. Plus, I could stop by the Princess Auto store and afterwards go for a hike with friends.
Anyways, I came back home after a completely unsuccessful trip, complaining about sellers. In fact, it was successful shopping for SWMBO, the kid, the dragon, but not for me. The Astrom seller backed out when I asked if it could be demonstrated in operation.
I happened to whine about that PSU seller when I let mnem know that I have the 4070A for him. That spawned his project and subjected us to all those postings about the project along with the trials & tribulations of 3DP.
Karma seemed again in my favour as I found a kayak for sale located in Trenton, ON. Plans were put in place to go get the kayak, meet a dragon and exchange some gear. At the last minute, the kayak seller cancelled.
I already had a pile of cash and the car ready, roof-racks installed and borrowed kayak saddles attached to the roof-rack. The good decision was made to make the trip anyways, just changing the location to Madoc, ON.
[Edit: You are all spared all the pithy lines I had thought up related to boats and boat-anchors.]
Things got better. I managed to score a Fluke 8060A on the way out of town at the start of the trip.
Yay!, the TE drought is ended; been many months since acquiring anything. The 8060A was advertised as fully working, but in person the seller indicated there was a Ohms offset on the microAmps setting. Yes, that does not make sense; further investigation necessary. Also, the probes are not original. After getting it home, it looks like the case is not quite fitting properly and there is some case damage at the corners.
Meeting up in Madoc was excellent. I agree that the food was excellent. The conversation was 3 hours
, but even then only touched on the highlights. That
powered bicycle motorcycle that I touched dates from 1914.
Equipment was exchanged before we had to part ways and return home.
Now, I've got the powwaThe fun did not end there. Armed with knowledge of where the road construction was on the drive there, I went North on secondary roads instead of going east on the highway for the return home. I took a chance on a short-cut and was rewarded with a paved road of 22.6km that took 17 minutes and had difficultly reaching the speed limit. I guess I was shifting on average every 20 seconds and braking on average every 40 seconds.
SWMBO would have been terribly car-sick. The autumn scenery was also nicer this way than dealing with the big trucks on the highway: