Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mansaxel]

Yeah, the supermarkets are one bunch of crooks that it's almost impossible for anyone to avoid. They have formed an effective cartel for buying some products without actually forming a cartel, ask any dairy farmer or arable farmer. In the case of dairy farming they've made the occupation one that no longer makes economic sense for the producers, only the massive agro-businesses like Arla can survive.

We're COOP members here, and honouring their tradition they've set up a parallel dairy operation so that we've ended up with alternatives. I buy the COOP milk, but avoid the butter, since Valio butter from Finland is so much better. If the children have their friends with allergies over we go for Valio non-lactose products because those are the best ones, hands down. Arla gets to supply nearly nothing to us, unless it's on sale. Arla actually is owned by the farming coöperatives.

But, yes, there are few alternatives to the mega-chains. At least I get a reasonably good points program in COOP, as well as 5% off the receipt if I shop mon-wed and for more than 1000SEK.

[Saskia]

I'll be on discord voice chat tomorrow and I look forward to hearing the loudness of the fan as well. As for this quadcopter, PWM, ESC and all this BLDC/PMSM and whatever, I don't have the foggiest idea of what is going on there, so I'm keeping quiet on the topic, know your limitations I say, but I read and try to understand in order to broaden my experience a bit.

As for the small man syndrome Cerebus speaks of, I too have noticed that it does tend to be the smaller packages that are most aggressive in all forms of life, be it man, cat, dog, bird etc but there are always the exception to that. I hope that he was not referring to me with that statement because I can assure you all that I'm not a small man, being 6ft 4" tall and built like the proverbial brick sh1t house with such large hands that I struggle to find any gloves to fit me 

I feel you on the gloves.  I am not your height being a measly 6ft my self and built like Mnem intead of a brick shithouse.  I have large hands myself and extra large gloves are more or less useless.  Not sure how to compare hand size but I wear a size 13 wedding ring, my hands are literally twice the size of Mrs GreyWoolfe's dainty appendages and span the entire length of her forearm.  Found 2X nitrile gloves on amazon and it is nice not to have gloves so tight as to see the individual hairs on the back of my hands.  Mrs GreyWoolfe took me into a new local Tractor Supply and almost wet myself when she pointed out the 2X work gloves.  They fit like a glove should and were cheaper than the offerings at Home Depot so I will have to go back and grab a few more to hide in my tool chest.  Up to that point, I would have never imagined not having to force my hands uncomfortably into gloves.

Okay... Size 10.25 here.  No idea what that translates to.

2X nitrile gloves rip half the time when I put them on. That wedding band started out as a size 16; I've straightened it enough times with a ring resizer that it is probably the next size larger. It is now 24mm ID, and still fits that tight. Oh, and I'm left-handed; so that's the small hand.

I get the 2X Mechanic's gloves from Horror Fraught or Princess Auto or Rancher Gloves from Tractor Supply Corp and I have to oil them and stretch them out. I have always had chunky sausage fingers; that has only gotten worse as I've gotten fatter. But my fingernails are trimmed. Today. 

mnem
 

I'm a size 10, so that I presume is a XL?

what were OJs first words after the not guilty verdict `?`

Can I get my glove back ?

[mnementh]

But hey... it doesn't matter. I'll let you learn all the lessons I did the hard way if you ever get into acro & race quads. That's the only way you'll really understand.

Perhaps.

I've spent the last 2 days learning 2.4GHz radio control conventions. Not the RF part, the Dunlop connector part. It is not obvious! Did not help that the receiver had its Dunlop pin array fried; apparently previous owner had an accident involving a motor controller giving the receiver WAAAY to much current; one 5V feeder pin was gone, as in desoldered, and one was molten and only half as long as the others..

The modern RC control receiver runs on 5VDC, and has a connector field  that is a 3-row Dunlop pin header array, as on RPi computers etc. Each group of three adjacent pins is 0V, +5V, and control. 0V and +5V are bussed. Control is a PWM output pulse train running at (in this particular case) about 71.63Hz with a pulse width varying over 1...2ms. Controls that are positive only (like engine throttle) start at 1ms and increase to 2ms; controls that have a center null of course start at 1,5ms and range from 1 to 2 ms.

As it turns out the molten one was on the servo row where motor controller must go (if you want sensible control lever disposition) and this did complicate fault-finding.

Not until I'd powered the receiver from the 6205B (and monitored it with the 427A, hi, BD!) and looked at the signal outputs with the ScopeMeter did things start to be comprehensible to me. 

As it turned out, the 5V bus joining all the 5V pins was broken too, so now there's a bodge wire on the back of the PCB. And, I've cut out those 6 pins that were in the two damaged rows and replaced them with a new 3x2 section of header from a dead Arduino Micro clone.

Best part? The Boy plane-owner, who was watching me learn this, simply stated: "It is really cosy here at the bench".

He's out crashing the plane now.

LOL... did you mean the 0.100" DuPont connector...?

No, this exact failure is NOT uncommon. It usually means someone plugged a ESC into a battery backwards and it fried the traces in the RX because some other attached bit of gear had a RPP shunt diode in it. You're lucky the RX was repairable; either it had the RPP shunt diode and it did its job, or sometimes the RX manufacturer will use a series diode for RPP.

This is is one of the main reasons I avoid powering my radio directly off the battery, although most modern RX and many modern servos are designed to handle it. The pinout with +5V center pin is deliberate integral RPP for things plugged into the RX; no matter which way you flip the DuPont connector it won't hurt anything as long as the +5V is on the center pin.

Another common cause of this failure mode is high-voltage/high-current servos incorrectly plugged only into the RX. These need a PDB, which is fed power directly from the battery. If something causes one of these servos to stall, they can draw enough LRA to smoke the traces off the RX; in most cases it is NOT designed to serve as a PDB.

mnem
 

[BU508A]

Why is it possible to plugin high energy connectors backwards?

 

[Specmaster]

@Cerebus Did you ever get your windscreen wiper blades from Home Bargains in the end? I'm pleased with mine 

[Cerebus]

@Cerebus Did you ever get your windscreen wiper blades from Home Bargains in the end? I'm pleased with mine 

No, I've not been back to try that branch in Beckton again. I will be going back there as we picked up a couple of household favourites that we don't often see elsewhere (Mentos mints that are crumbly like Edinburgh rock is one of the things). I had a pretty good search when I was there and no dice on the wipers. Perhaps they hadn't got stock yet at the time I went, or perhaps it's just some branches.

I do need some so I'll definitely persist, I seem to get through wipers like nobodies' business. I don't know if it's the particular shape of my windscreen that knackers them quickly, or whether I'm fussier than most, or something else but they only seem to give me 6 months of what I'd consider good use and 12 months of merely serviceable in total.

[Mr. Scram]

Mnem, fine. Your magic BLDCs are different to everybody else's BLDCs and operate with physics that can only be known to the cognoscenti.

Why do you keep doing this to yourself. Why do you refuse to admit that there are people, like Robert, who know what they're talking about, and when they say "No, sorry that's wrong" you go off on one and shout and shout and shout until you think you've beaten the 'opposition' into submission. Has it passed your notice that people are openly commenting on that behaviour, that you now have a reputation for it. Doesn't that give you pause for thought. I bet at school you were the smartest kid in the room and always got the answers right, but you're not at school now, and you're on a board where you can't know everything better than everybody else.

All that you're doing is teaching people that you are unteachable. More and more people are just going to quietly ignore it when you get things wrong, because they know what's coming - the storm of shouting. You've certainly taught me that to dare to correct you in any form, no matter how gently or circumspectly, is just going to result in shit. I thought I'd have one last try, it failed. ENDS

mnemmenth would probably have argued with Stephen Hawking that his understanding of black holes wasn't all that, based on the knowledge and extensive experience mnem accrued during a two month stint as a NASA doorbell technician. These discussions follow the same pattern again and again, just with a different subject and victim. I suppose the latter will run out at some point and the illusion will be complete.

[med6753]

Ooooooh Shit. 

[mnementh]

Why is it possible to plugin high energy connectors backwards?

High-energy connectors on devices which have enough surge current capacity that fuses are simply not feasible... even worse.

Some people use stupid connectors; (part of the reason I'm so vehement aboot XT series shrouded connectors vs SERMOS, etc) but usually it's a matter of someone soldering a battery pigtail up wrong. Happens all the time. One of the reasons I started the SmokeStopper project; model electronics that actually have a RPP diode (and sometimes ones that don't) usually survive if you build one and get in the habit of testing with it every time you mess with something electrical on your model.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

As requested. Here is it how it currently sits. I flipped the fan around yesterday and it appears to now draw air in. The motor is spinning in a clockwise direction.

No, I'm not rehashing this from yesterday but the whole thing did appear to be impossible, so I have been revisiting the postings to gain clues and it is folks, something that I think we all missed in the excitement.

Here is the original photo of the unit before Med got to work in his unique way of making everything look brand new and in another post he says that the motor is running clockwise when viewed from the motor end, although he does not specify that above, he did in the posting. But, I don't know if you can spot this or not, but my eye, it looks as if the blade sits further towards the grill in the original photo, The blade is in the correct orientation but seems to be close to the baffle plate?

If that is so, I still don't know if that would increase the fan noise or not, but it could help to explain why some air appears to be blowing out the front as the air coming off the blades is being split by the baffle board.

At least if Med fits a large enough case fan to sit on the baffle board, it would totally eliminate any effect it might be having on the airflow and thus noise level 

Gah, I tried to host this image on Imgur but it's having problems at the moment so its a thumbnail, sorry about that.

[Specmaster]

Ooooooh Shit. 

Thats the popcorn taken care off, just the soft drinks to go now, and we're all set 

[0culus]

From the current Ramco auction:



"DO NOT USE ANTENNAS" - No shit Sherlock? 

I bet there's a back story to that label. Either the MD driving into a nearby lake because he's stupid enough to believe his satnav, or the MOD visiting with burly gentlemen in tow to explain that they were not happy.

That's "how fast can you get yourself into a lot of trouble" box if I ever saw one. The problem, of course, is that real GPS signals coming from the sats are incredibly weak on the ground so you need miniscule EIRP to completely overpower it.

[Cerebus]

Ooooooh Shit. 
[/URL]

Thats the popcorn taken care off, just the soft drinks to go now, and we're all set 

You've forgotten the 10 litres of melted butter you're going to need to go with that bag of popcorn.

If butter's not to your taste, there's always the 10 litres of searing hot caramel.

[Specmaster]

@Cerebus Did you ever get your windscreen wiper blades from Home Bargains in the end? I'm pleased with mine 

No, I've not been back to try that branch in Beckton again. I will be going back there as we picked up a couple of household favourites that we don't often see elsewhere (Mentos mints that are crumbly like Edinburgh rock is one of the things). I had a pretty good search when I was there and no dice on the wipers. Perhaps they hadn't got stock yet at the time I went, or perhaps it's just some branches.

I do need some so I'll definitely persist, I seem to get through wipers like nobodies' business. I don't know if it's the particular shape of my windscreen that knackers them quickly, or whether I'm fussier than most, or something else but they only seem to give me 6 months of what I'd consider good use and 12 months of merely serviceable in total.

As far as my Son knows, all branches carry them as they all get their stock sent from the central warehouse, and they don't know what is arriving until it gets there. Do you park near to any trees or shrubs that drop their leaves? I have to park under a bloody catkin tree, so I get catkins drop all over the car and get under the wiper blades in the spring, then I get bird shit everywhere and in the autumn I get all the bloody leaves clogging the air grilles for heater and AC, and rain channels etc. That means almost daily I have to pull my wiper arms off the screen and give them a wipe with a damp clothe to remove anything sticking to them otherwise risk getting tramlines gouged in the glass 

[Cerebus]

From the current Ramco auction:



"DO NOT USE ANTENNAS" - No shit Sherlock? 

I bet there's a back story to that label. Either the MD driving into a nearby lake because he's stupid enough to believe his satnav, or the MOD visiting with burly gentlemen in tow to explain that they were not happy.

That's "how fast can you get yourself into a lot of trouble" box if I ever saw one. The problem, of course, is that real GPS signals coming from the sats are incredibly weak on the ground so you need miniscule EIRP to completely overpower it.

Yeah, that's why I think the terminator that someone's put on the output looks like a sensible safety measure. Avoids causing car crashes, air crashes, god knows what, while you power the box on, make sure the output is turned off, set the attenuation and get your test rig ready.

Around here I get GPS signal strengths that are below the general RF noise floor, drowning them out could be done with a single MMIC and a bent coat hanger.

[Robert763]

From the current Ramco auction:



"DO NOT USE ANTENNAS" - No shit Sherlock? 

I bet there's a back story to that label. Either the MD driving into a nearby lake because he's stupid enough to believe his satnav, or the MOD visiting with burly gentlemen in tow to explain that they were not happy.

That's "how fast can you get yourself into a lot of trouble" box if I ever saw one. The problem, of course, is that real GPS signals coming from the sats are incredibly weak on the ground so you need miniscule EIRP to completely overpower it.

That is why (in the UK at least) you need a licence for a GPS repeater even if it is indoors. Unfortunaly there tre lots of ignorent people buying them in mail order.
As a side note if anyone is thinking of buying that unit, it needs software on a PC to do anything and it's not cheap software.

[Cerebus]

@Cerebus Did you ever get your windscreen wiper blades from Home Bargains in the end? I'm pleased with mine 

No, I've not been back to try that branch in Beckton again. I will be going back there as we picked up a couple of household favourites that we don't often see elsewhere (Mentos mints that are crumbly like Edinburgh rock is one of the things). I had a pretty good search when I was there and no dice on the wipers. Perhaps they hadn't got stock yet at the time I went, or perhaps it's just some branches.

I do need some so I'll definitely persist, I seem to get through wipers like nobodies' business. I don't know if it's the particular shape of my windscreen that knackers them quickly, or whether I'm fussier than most, or something else but they only seem to give me 6 months of what I'd consider good use and 12 months of merely serviceable in total.

As far as my Son knows, all branches carry them as they all get their stock sent from the central warehouse, and they don't know what is arriving until it gets there. Do you park near to any trees or shrubs that drop their leaves? I have to park under a bloody catkin tree, so I get catkins drop all over the car and get under the wiper blades in the spring, then I get bird shit everywhere and in the autumn I get all the bloody leaves clogging the air grilles for heater and AC, and rain channels etc. That means almost daily I have to pull my wiper arms off the screen and give them a wipe with a damp clothe to remove anything sticking to them otherwise risk getting tramlines gouged in the glass 

Nah, at the moment (in peak leaf shedding season as we are) I have to pick perhaps six leaves off the whole car before setting out.

[bd139]

I’d just like to drop some congratulations to our American friends on the narrowly won correction on your last round of stupid. I shall celebrate this victory by drinking the remaining 3/4 of a bottle of the cheapest wine that Tesco produce that went in my beef bourgignon and rubbing my hands together to see what shit storm happens here next. It’s our turn after all now.

Edit: to the folk who sent me PM’s in the last day I shall reply when I get a minute. Been super busy saving London from an overreaching mega corporation. Will be on discord if I don’t poison myself with this dinner.

[Saskia]

From the current Ramco auction:



"DO NOT USE ANTENNAS" - No shit Sherlock? 

I bet there's a back story to that label. Either the MD driving into a nearby lake because he's stupid enough to believe his satnav, or the MOD visiting with burly gentlemen in tow to explain that they were not happy.

That's "how fast can you get yourself into a lot of trouble" box if I ever saw one. The problem, of course, is that real GPS signals coming from the sats are incredibly weak on the ground so you need miniscule EIRP to completely overpower it.

That is why (in the UK at least) you need a licence for a GPS repeater even if it is indoors. Unfortunaly there tre lots of ignorent people buying them in mail order.
As a side note if anyone is thinking of buying that unit, it needs software on a PC to do anything and it's not cheap software.

sniff. I might have wanted a simulator for my guidance system. You don't by any chance have GPS receivers that can handle > 3kmph ?

[mnementh]

I’d just like to drop some congratulations to our American friends on the narrowly won correction on your last round of stupid. I shall celebrate this victory by drinking the remaining 3/4 of a bottle of the cheapest wine that Tesco produce that went in my beef bourgignon and rubbing my hands together to see what shit storm happens here next. It’s our turn after all now.

Edit: to the folk who sent me PM’s in the last day I shall reply when I get a minute. Been super busy saving London from an overreaching mega corporation. Will be on discord if I don’t poison myself with this dinner.

Oh... has the flaming bag of dogshit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave finally been stomped to the curb? No backsies? Last I heard they were gonna fight it until the last minute, some time in December...

mnem
 

[Saskia]

Ooooooh Shit. 
[/URL]

Thats the popcorn taken care off, just the soft drinks to go now, and we're all set 

You've forgotten the 10 litres of melted butter you're going to need to go with that bag of popcorn.

If butter's not to your taste, there's always the 10 litres of searing hot caramel.

Nope. Habanero or Jolokia powder will do just fine. Then lay traps for the unsuspecting coworkers.

Reminds me of the reaction my boss showed when pilfering some of my popcorn.

[mnementh]

  is with all this popcorn BS ...?

mnem
 

[Saskia]

I’d just like to drop some congratulations to our American friends on the narrowly won correction on your last round of stupid. I shall celebrate this victory by drinking the remaining 3/4 of a bottle of the cheapest wine that Tesco produce that went in my beef bourgignon and rubbing my hands together to see what shit storm happens here next. It’s our turn after all now.

Edit: to the folk who sent me PM’s in the last day I shall reply when I get a minute. Been super busy saving London from an overreaching mega corporation. Will be on discord if I don’t poison myself with this dinner.

Oh... has the flaming bag of dogshit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave finally been stomped to the curb? No backsies? Last I heard they were gonna fight it until the last minute, some time in December...

mnem
 

Guess where that excessively corrupt Biden will suck up the bribes next.
He'll probably stop the anti trust investigation into his google donors immediately.

[bd139]

Oh... has the flaming bag of dogshit finally been stomped to the curb at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? No backsies? Last I heard they were gonna fight it until the last minute, some time in December...

Only the stupid fight a battle they have already lost. Watch what happens next. Med’s bag of popcorn is not big enough. No banana with our trade deals here in the Uk now. I predict grovelling back to the EU next which is the second least shit outcome behind actually not leaving to start with.

I’d just like to drop some congratulations to our American friends on the narrowly won correction on your last round of stupid. I shall celebrate this victory by drinking the remaining 3/4 of a bottle of the cheapest wine that Tesco produce that went in my beef bourgignon and rubbing my hands together to see what shit storm happens here next. It’s our turn after all now.

Edit: to the folk who sent me PM’s in the last day I shall reply when I get a minute. Been super busy saving London from an overreaching mega corporation. Will be on discord if I don’t poison myself with this dinner.

Oh... has the flaming bag of dogshit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave finally been stomped to the curb? No backsies? Last I heard they were gonna fight it until the last minute, some time in December...

mnem
 

Guess where that excessively corrupt Biden will suck up the bribes next.

In politics we can never vote for the best answer merely the least shit of the two most popular ones. This is a  hollow victory but a considerably less stupid one than the other one on the table.

[Specmaster]

I’d just like to drop some congratulations to our American friends on the narrowly won correction on your last round of stupid. I shall celebrate this victory by drinking the remaining 3/4 of a bottle of the cheapest wine that Tesco produce that went in my beef bourgignon and rubbing my hands together to see what shit storm happens here next. It’s our turn after all now.

Edit: to the folk who sent me PM’s in the last day I shall reply when I get a minute. Been super busy saving London from an overreaching mega corporation. Will be on discord if I don’t poison myself with this dinner.

Oh... has the flaming bag of dogshit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave finally been stomped to the curb? No backsies? Last I heard they were gonna fight it until the last minute, some time in December...

mnem
 

That might still happen yet, I doubt that he will go quietly or dignified like all other previous presidents have done. I'm hearing that he has fired the person who has the overall responsibility for the nuclear arsenal, so what might his motifs be there I wonder, pop one off at North Korea perhaps and unleash Armageddon, who knows?