Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Before. 




After.  Circuit is an LM317T so I can vary the voltage and the speed for best cooling vs noise. The new fan is by no means silent but a hell of a lot quieter then original. I think if I find some sort of foam filter it will be even quieter. And even at a slow speed this fan pulls air much stronger than the original.

Going to install it and power up the Type 310A and check the results.

Good job! Well done, dad.   

[Ice-Tea]

Appreciate the feedback on Farnell PSUs. Had no idea they actually used to make 'm.

[mnementh]

When I was at Lidl, I also picked up one of these 450mm long magnetic toolbars for £2.99, just haven't got round to fixing it to the wall yet 

Horror Fraught usedta put them up as the "BOGO coupon freebie" aboot every other month. Collected enough of them to go around the top of a AV cart and use them to hold a 1/8" plate in place as a welding bench. 

mnem
I miss their CHEAP heat-shrink tubing something fierce...

[Neomys Sapiens]

While I was browsing my local Lidl the other day I spotted a vice and discounted it because I thought it was one of those suction ......

I wasn't aware that you are actively trying to aquire another vice!

When I was at Lidl, I also picked up one of these 450mm long magnetic toolbars for £2.99, just haven't got round to fixing it to the wall yet 

But magnetizing tools which are to be used in electronics is not a mere vice but a cardinal sin!

[mnementh]

Lick me. I magnetize EVERYTHING. Nuttin' pisses me off more than having to put something down and get down on hands & knees in the middle of a job to scrounge up a screw that pinged off all the way to the back wall under the bench...

mnem

[AVGresponding]

That just means your skills are unhoned when you find yourself fumbling with brass or stainless steel screws...

[nixiefreqq]

Before. 




After.  Circuit is an LM317T so I can vary the voltage and the speed for best cooling vs noise. The new fan is by no means silent but a hell of a lot quieter then original. I think if I find some sort of foam filter it will be even quieter. And even at a slow speed this fan pulls air much stronger than the original.

Going to install it and power up the Type 310A and check the results.

hey med

looks good except for one nit.

does the heat sink on that regulator get hot?  not a lot of thermal mass there......but maybe since directly in the air flow it is ok?

(calculating thermal transfer is something i claim to know almost nothing about.  could you stick one of your blue fingers on it just to satisfy my curiosity?  if you get scorched they say aloe is good for burns.)

[Specmaster]

Thinking forwards from BD's issue with the box junction and the topic about traffic lights would best for that junction, I agree, but here is another sideways thought about how unfair the system towards drivers today. This Is a real live problem with traffic lights, be they at a junction or just a pedestrian crossing etc. Drivers come in all sizes and yet TL (traffic lights) don't and they don't even follow the same rules on the positioning of the TL themselves. Think about it, I'm 6ft 4" tall, that means that I have to push my seat a long way back to get a comfortable position to drive, then my head is also going to close to the roof lining so my line of vision is going to be a lot smaller than that of a shorter driver, who will both nearer to the steering wheel and also lower down, thus affording him or her a great field of vision. This means that as I approach TL, they disappear from my vision a lot quicker than for a shorter driver, so taller drivers are at greater risk of crossing a red signal than shorter ones, yes? The same is true when sitting at TL, these are very often out of my view unless I crane my neck etc in order to see them. Some junctions have repeater lights on the other side of the junction which are fine, but some authorities won't install them to save money

So, taller drivers are more at risk of getting caught by a red light camera, more at risk of getting caught in a box junction with TLs and also more at risk of being that bloody nutter at the front of queue, sitting there, holding everyone else back when the TLs have gone to green, because they can't see them

So the next time someone appears to jump lights at red, or just sits there at green, don't have a fit and start swearing etc because that person might just be yours truly 

[Cerebus]

I used to live where I've put the orange star, a little bit over \$\frac{1}{2}\$ a mile from the end of the runway at RAF Northolt. Iused to get to see the underside of all sorts of interesting things on days when there were ceremonial flights.

I live at 90 degrees to the local big runway, which wasn't an accident. There's no way I would want to live in one of the villages 1km-1mile from the runway end.

Where I was living was surprisingly quiet most of the time. I had the A40 just to the north and, as already noted, the RAF Northolt flight path overhead. Ninety-nine percent of Northolt's traffic seemed to be modern STOL passenger planes pressed into military and diplomatic service. The queen's flight while it existed operated out of there too. It's smack on a major road into London and seems ideally placed for ferrying the kind of people who get police escorts to and from the seat of British Government. It was only when they had old ceremonial petrol powered traffic, or there was a proper flap on, that I ever noticed that it was there from aircraft noise.

I also used to live less than 2 miles due north of Heathrow and that too was surprisingly quiet. There I wasn't on any of the direct flight paths though.

[Specmaster]

While I was browsing my local Lidl the other day I spotted a vice and discounted it because I thought it was one of those suction ......

I wasn't aware that you are actively trying to aquire another vice!

When I was at Lidl, I also picked up one of these 450mm long magnetic toolbars for £2.99, just haven't got round to fixing it to the wall yet 

But magnetizing tools which are to be used in electronics is not a mere vice but a cardinal sin!

What  why?  As Menmenth said, it helps to prevent screws from pinging off in all directions and getting lost etc.

[Specmaster]

That just means your skills are unhoned when you find yourself fumbling with brass or stainless steel screws...

to coin a certain lady members phrase, details, mere, details.

[nfmax]

I used to live where I've put the orange star, a little bit over \$\frac{1}{2}\$ a mile from the end of the runway at RAF Northolt. Iused to get to see the underside of all sorts of interesting things on days when there were ceremonial flights.

I live at 90 degrees to the local big runway, which wasn't an accident. There's no way I would want to live in one of the villages 1km-1mile from the runway end.

Hence the most exciting things I see are balloons and smiley faces (qv), and this:

The most impressive was a Lancaster taking off from Northolt being joined by a escort of two Spitfires - loud does not do justice to what was passing by at less than 150 feet.

Try a Vulcan in a climb

Nah, honestly, not a patch on a F15 with full after burners on, but the Vulcan was loud I grant you, in fact it was perhaps my all-time favourite aircraft with many memories of how the RAF used to chuck it about the sky in a fashion the Vulcan trust just never did and were in fact forbidden from doing by the CAA.

My LOUD experience was the 5-Hovering-Harriers-Bowing-to-the-Crowd formation, being right against the flight line fence at the time!

[mnementh]

*cups hand around ear*    Whaaaaaaaat?!?

mnem
 

[McBryce]

Why didn't you just bolt the regulator to the housing? There's even a hole already there on the left.

McBryce.

[mnementh]

med has a terminal strip habit which must be fed.   

mnem

[Specmaster]

I used to live where I've put the orange star, a little bit over \$\frac{1}{2}\$ a mile from the end of the runway at RAF Northolt. Iused to get to see the underside of all sorts of interesting things on days when there were ceremonial flights.

I live at 90 degrees to the local big runway, which wasn't an accident. There's no way I would want to live in one of the villages 1km-1mile from the runway end.

Where I was living was surprisingly quiet most of the time. I had the A40 just to the north and, as already noted, the RAF Northolt flight path overhead. Ninety-nine percent of Northolt's traffic seemed to be modern STOL passenger planes pressed into military and diplomatic service. The queen's flight while it existed operated out of there too. It's smack on a major road into London and seems ideally placed for ferrying the kind of people who get police escorts to and from the seat of British Government. It was only when they had old ceremonial petrol powered traffic, or there was a proper flap on, that I ever noticed that it was there from aircraft noise.

I also used to live less than 2 miles due north of Heathrow and that too was surprisingly quiet. There I wasn't on any of the direct flight paths though.

Back in the day I expect Northolt would have been a lot noisier when it was fully operational base in the proper sense of the word. Modern airliners are so much quieter than they were 20 to 30 years ago that these days unless you are right close to the threshold of Heathrow runways you would be hard pressed to hear plane noise above the road traffic roar. Take a trip to somewhere like RAF Brize Norton or RAF Mildenhall where the military versions of some the older airliners still operate from and the differance is startling.

[mnementh]

That just means your skills are unhoned when you find yourself fumbling with brass or stainless steel screws...

to coin a certain lady members phrase, details, mere, details.

So that's a good reason to volunteer for more misery when not engaged in one of those infrequent use-cases? 

mnem
"There's enough misery to go 'round without grabbing for more." ~mom

[mnementh]

While I was browsing my local Lidl the other day I spotted a vice and discounted it because I thought it was one of those suction ......

I wasn't aware that you are actively trying to aquire another vice!

When I was at Lidl, I also picked up one of these 450mm long magnetic toolbars for £2.99, just haven't got round to fixing it to the wall yet 

But magnetizing tools which are to be used in electronics is not a mere vice but a cardinal sin!

What  why?  As Menmenth said, it helps to prevent screws from pinging off in all directions and getting lost etc.

Yeah... back in the day, when we had 5.25" floppies lying around, a magnetized screwdriver could do some damage. That phobia carries through even today, with other spinning rust, I suppose.

I was broken of that misconception one day when, in the midst of a prank war, I deliberately tried to nuke a coworker's exposed running hard drive with a bulk tape eraser and...

NOTHING. NADA. ZIP.

Later, I tried nuking aboot a dozen different HDDs from the parts pile, first with one and even two bulk erasers and not a single failure; even doing a full scan on all, except for one laptop HDD that had already been marked "".

A little research on the Seagate website revealed the reason... short of a superconductor magnet, it is very hard to generate magnetic flux equivalent to the head spinning a few microns above the platter. The shell of the drive is more than enough protection in 99% of cases.

So yeah... magnetized screwdrivers are your friend. Just keep them out of where you're doing sensitive adjustments, and where they can draw themselves to dangerous bits of your equipment.

mnem
 

[Neomys Sapiens]

While I was browsing my local Lidl the other day I spotted a vice and discounted it because I thought it was one of those suction ......

I wasn't aware that you are actively trying to aquire another vice!

When I was at Lidl, I also picked up one of these 450mm long magnetic toolbars for £2.99, just haven't got round to fixing it to the wall yet 

But magnetizing tools which are to be used in electronics is not a mere vice but a cardinal sin!

What  why?  As Menmenth said, it helps to prevent screws from pinging off in all directions and getting lost etc.

For that, one uses screw starters respectively retaining screwdrivers. Also, I DO think that it is advisable to have one or more tools for the controlled application of magnetism at hand. But with uncontrolled magnetism, your tools will spread this to every magnetizable part and sooner or later one of them will end up where it disturbs the action of a component which is using magnetic effects in a dedicated way.

Also, the seemingly easyer handling is fraught with dangers in itself. Magnetized washers will cling to places where you will not see them when doing a cursory check, only to become loose later and cause a short. And when every screwdriver and as careless as some people are, some probes and accessories start to cause a pulse signal when coming just close to any inductor in a sensitive circuit, I seriously start to detest those careless magnet perps.

[mnementh]

Detest away, my friend. I grok your concerns, and have had to deal with the issues you describe. I have both magnetized and non-magnetized drivers at hand. I keep a magnetizer/demagnetizer in my drawer for when I need one or the other ATM.

But I'm gonna keep using my magnetized drivers most of the time. I especially hate having to put a project on the shelf and order some tiny, special screw that got lost. As we make more and more handheld e-devices, those incidents become more and more common.

mnem
 

[med6753]

Why didn't you just bolt the regulator to the housing? There's even a hole already there on the left.

McBryce.

The tab of the LM317T is the +V output and I didn't have a mica insulator.

[med6753]

Before. 




After.  Circuit is an LM317T so I can vary the voltage and the speed for best cooling vs noise. The new fan is by no means silent but a hell of a lot quieter then original. I think if I find some sort of foam filter it will be even quieter. And even at a slow speed this fan pulls air much stronger than the original.

Going to install it and power up the Type 310A and check the results.

hey med

looks good except for one nit.

does the heat sink on that regulator get hot?  not a lot of thermal mass there......but maybe since directly in the air flow it is ok?

(calculating thermal transfer is something i claim to know almost nothing about.  could you stick one of your blue fingers on it just to satisfy my curiosity?  if you get scorched they say aloe is good for burns.)

I had the same concern. I checked it and it does get warm but not overly hot. I do have a larger heatsink I can bolt on if necessary. And yes, it gets LOTS of airflow.

The Type 310A has been on for a little over 2 hours and the results are remarkable. Prior to fan the top of the cabinet would get warm, well actually HOT, and if you left your hand on there you would sustain a burn. With the fan the entire outer cabinet of the Type 310A is barely warm to the touch. That much of a difference. 

[tautech]

Wow, 3000 pages of TEA goodness ! 

[mnementh]

This pleases me.

mnem

[Specmaster]

While I was browsing my local Lidl the other day I spotted a vice and discounted it because I thought it was one of those suction ......

I wasn't aware that you are actively trying to aquire another vice!

When I was at Lidl, I also picked up one of these 450mm long magnetic toolbars for £2.99, just haven't got round to fixing it to the wall yet 

But magnetizing tools which are to be used in electronics is not a mere vice but a cardinal sin!

What  why?  As Menmenth said, it helps to prevent screws from pinging off in all directions and getting lost etc.

Yeah... back in the day, when we had 5.25" floppies lying around, a magnetized screwdriver could do some damage. That phobia carries through even today, with other spinning rust, I suppose.

I was broken of that misconception one day when, in the midst of a prank war, I deliberately tried to nuke a coworker's exposed running hard drive with a bulk tape eraser and...

NOTHING. NADA. ZIP.

Later, I tried nuking aboot a dozen different HDDs from the parts pile, first with one and even two bulk erasers and not a single failure; even doing a full scan on all, except for one laptop HDD that had already been marked "".

A little research on the Seagate website revealed the reason... short of a superconductor magnet, it is very hard to generate magnetic flux equivalent to the head spinning a few microns above the platter. The shell of the drive is more than enough protection in 99% of cases.

So yeah... magnetized screwdrivers are your friend. Just keep them out of where you're doing sensitive adjustments, and where they can draw themselves to dangerous bits of your equipment.

mnem
 

Yeah, for situations where a tool could be drawn towards a dangerous bit of equipment, I have ready to hand a couple demagnetizers so no problems.