Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Trying to explain your TEA activities to someone who is “non-technical” can be tough. For years I've shown and tried to explain to the Lady Cop what I've done or what I'm working on and her response is puzzled looks. But while she doesn't totally understand it she at least appreciates it and encourages me when I tell her I'm having issues repairing something.

But when it comes to explaining to her coworkers or friends what I do she's at a total loss. She just can't convey what TEA is. She recently started working with another woman who are friends from many years ago but lost touch with each other but now are in the process of catching up. So I took these updated pictures and sent them to her in an effort to help her explain TEA. And I'm sure there would be lots of giggles. And giggles they did. Upon seeing the pictures her friend's first reaction was “What is all that stuff?” Response: I have no clue. Next reaction: “I wish my husband were that neat”. Uh-oh. I think I got some poor guy in trouble and he doesn't know why. But in reality that's nothing new because you can screw up and not know why and your woman won't tell you why. But I don't want to be the reason for the guy going “WTF?”.   

[Mr. Scram]

So how many cars are made and sold only in Canada?
Not many I guess, so they will all comply with harmonised standards and over read.
The Canadian rules require a little more than there must be a means of indicating speed to the driver, it must be illuninated when the lights are on, must be MPH or KPH (or both) and must be labled to say which.
Inerestingly the European rules now say the speedometer must be indepenent i.e. a GPS speedometer is not acceptable. I assume so you can't say "sorry officer the GPS dropped out" when speeding.

Technical failure never has been an excuse. Especially considering you're responsible for the technical condition of the car you're driving. Europe has much more stringent requirements when it comes to the condition of your car than the US and as far as I'm aware all EU nations require independent periodic checkups to stay road legal. I'm often surprised about the junkers driving around in the US. You'd get stopped right quick in a hurry with one of those hoopties here.

[tautech]

So how many cars are made and sold only in Canada?
Not many I guess, so they will all comply with harmonised standards and over read.
The Canadian rules require a little more than there must be a means of indicating speed to the driver, it must be illuninated when the lights are on, must be MPH or KPH (or both) and must be labled to say which.
Inerestingly the European rules now say the speedometer must be indepenent i.e. a GPS speedometer is not acceptable. I assume so you can't say "sorry officer the GPS dropped out" when speeding.

Technical failure never has been an excuse. Especially considering you're responsible for the technical condition of the car you're driving. Europe has much more stringent requirements when it comes to the condition of your car than the US and as far as I'm aware all EU nations require independent periodic checkups to stay road legal. I'm often surprised about the junkers driving around in the US. You'd get stopped right quick in a hurry with one of those hoopties here.

You see some roughies in OZ too where they are only compelled to keep vehicles in a safe condition and no compulsory checks are required until you pass the vehicle to another owner.
Much different to NZ where vehicles made before 2000 must have 6 month checkups and vehicles made 2000 or later annual checkups.

[med6753]

So how many cars are made and sold only in Canada?
Not many I guess, so they will all comply with harmonised standards and over read.
The Canadian rules require a little more than there must be a means of indicating speed to the driver, it must be illuninated when the lights are on, must be MPH or KPH (or both) and must be labled to say which.
Inerestingly the European rules now say the speedometer must be indepenent i.e. a GPS speedometer is not acceptable. I assume so you can't say "sorry officer the GPS dropped out" when speeding.

Technical failure never has been an excuse. Especially considering you're responsible for the technical condition of the car you're driving. Europe has much more stringent requirements when it comes to the condition of your car than the US and as far as I'm aware all EU nations require independent periodic checkups to stay road legal. I'm often surprised about the junkers driving around in the US. You'd get stopped right quick in a hurry with one of those hoopties here.

That is highly dependent upon what state you reside in. Most states, including NYS, have required annual safety inspections to help keep junkers off the road. But some states have nothing at all so you will see lots of rolling wrecks. I think Florida is one of those states.

[Mr. Scram]

That is highly dependent upon what state you reside in. Most states, including NYS, have required annual safety inspections to help keep junkers off the road. But some states have nothing at all so you will see lots of rolling wrecks. I think Florida is one of those states.

I suspected it'd be state dependent. I keep being surprised how legal behaviour in one state could net you a long sentence in another, though I guess it's similar between EU nations. The US is a big place.

[McBryce]

Since LTT visit me at work, I share with you


at 8:40 you see the area where I work on future prototypes, that exact same car made me sweat a lot of analysis.
I am also wearing one of that fancy blue jacket....

Then there's a good chance that we have worked together at some time.

McBryce.

Because you like to wear fancy blue jackets, too?   

No. Because we seem to have worked on similar projects for the same company and sometimes in the same building.

McBryce.

[jxjbsd]

I haven't come for a long time. It's over 3000 pages

[factory]

This is a screen-grab of the offending picture.      David

Hmmmm... I assume this is one of your own pics, so not a .heic in disguise (as they are oft wont to do), right? Maybe try converting it to a different file format...?

mnem

No not any of that HEIC rubbish, just a JPG rotated & resized, I started again with the original picture and it worked fine the second time.

David

Are you by any chance using the Windoze Photos app to edit? While it is very convenient... at least on my PC, the last few revisions of Windoze it has been flaky as hell. Crashing on save, corrupted files, cursor starts acting weird halfway through a session. I've gotten in the habit of copying my pix to a catchall folder on my desktop before working with them, and leaving the original on the card as backup.

mnem
 

No I have been using IrfanView for editing for many years, I did have the Windoze photo CRapp when this machine was updated from Win 7 to Win 10, but it pissed me off so much with the unwanted automated organisation features I disabled it.

David

[SilverSolder]

So how many cars are made and sold only in Canada?
Not many I guess, so they will all comply with harmonised standards and over read.
The Canadian rules require a little more than there must be a means of indicating speed to the driver, it must be illuninated when the lights are on, must be MPH or KPH (or both) and must be labled to say which.
Inerestingly the European rules now say the speedometer must be indepenent i.e. a GPS speedometer is not acceptable. I assume so you can't say "sorry officer the GPS dropped out" when speeding.

Technical failure never has been an excuse. Especially considering you're responsible for the technical condition of the car you're driving. Europe has much more stringent requirements when it comes to the condition of your car than the US and as far as I'm aware all EU nations require independent periodic checkups to stay road legal. I'm often surprised about the junkers driving around in the US. You'd get stopped right quick in a hurry with one of those hoopties here.

It depends on the state.  I believe all vehicles registered in New York State must get a safety inspection at a DMV-licensed inspection station every 12 months, or something like that. 

Even though not all states have a regular inspection regime (it's freedom, dontcha know??), you can absolutely get "done" for driving a car that is in unsafe condition.

[Specmaster]

This is a screen-grab of the offending picture.      David

Hmmmm... I assume this is one of your own pics, so not a .heic in disguise (as they are oft wont to do), right? Maybe try converting it to a different file format...?

mnem

No not any of that HEIC rubbish, just a JPG rotated & resized, I started again with the original picture and it worked fine the second time.

David

Are you by any chance using the Windoze Photos app to edit? While it is very convenient... at least on my PC, the last few revisions of Windoze it has been flaky as hell. Crashing on save, corrupted files, cursor starts acting weird halfway through a session. I've gotten in the habit of copying my pix to a catchall folder on my desktop before working with them, and leaving the original on the card as backup.

mnem
 

No I have been using IrfanView for editing for many years, I did have the Windoze photo CRapp when this machine was updated from Win 7 to Win 10, but it pissed me off so much with the unwanted automated organisation features I disabled it.

David

I always use Paint to do my conversions, and it works a real treat.

[factory]

IrfanView does have a version of Paint too, it got recommended on another forum & I've got used to it now.

David

P.S. Looks like I'm going to very busy in the shed until the 2nd of December, just received the letter today.

[bd139]

I use Paint.Net. It's like a mini Photoshop with layers and whatnot thus you can use it for buggerizing images much further than most tools:



https://www.getpaint.net/

[factory]

Thanks I'll have a look at that one, looks interesting with the layers function you mentioned.

David

[shakalnokturn]

Using an old version of Paintshop Pro here.
Absolutely avoiding anything released by Adobe!

[SilverSolder]

[...]

I always use Paint to do my conversions, and it works a real treat.

Paint is an underrated application, it is small and efficient (not sure how the MS programmer that wrote it got away with that), very good at quick conversions, scribbling on a picture, cropping a screen shot, etc.  -  and it doesn't seem to be leaking information by embedding trackable tags in JPEGs etc. - can only be a matter of time before it is deleted from the Windows world!  (Speaking as a heavy duty Photoshop user)

[Specmaster]

I agree, MS Paint is a simple-to-use program that just works, quick and easy, especially if all you are trying to do is to select a part of a photograph to post on the forum, or use the entire photo but need to make it forum friendly to fit the file size requirements with maybe some basic but simple text added on or similar. I have looked at Paint.Net and it is more like a cut down version of Photoshop and is not intuitive at all.

[factory]

Part three of the Beckman 6145 counter teardown.

Here are the control & logic boards, with more Sprague 109D wet tant leak bombs  , interesting the S-logic board has some unpopulated components & a bodged in extra diode.




And the DCU boards (decimal counting unit?), some of these don't match the types listed on the inside of the cover, I don't know if they got replaced some point or they forgot to update the location diagram. 
Well the patent https://www.freepatentsonline.com/2538122.pdf on all the 850 DCU boards seems to be for a vacuum bulb based version of the circuit from the 1940's, not sure why they put it on these later 1960's boards. 


This is the only board with IC's in this counter, the 876 DCU is also not the type listed on the inside cover.


More to follow...

David

[bd139]

I have looked at Paint.Net and it is more like a cut down version of Photoshop and is not intuitive at all.

Worth doing a couple of photoshoppy type tutorials. Once you "get" layers it's soooooo much better.

[Specmaster]

I have looked at Paint.Net and it is more like a cut down version of Photoshop and is not intuitive at all.

Worth doing a couple of photoshoppy type tutorials. Once you "get" layers it's soooooo much better.

The use of layers is to what with to what? All I normally do with Paint is to reduce a file size to make a clickable attachment on the forum, otherwise I host it on Imgur if I want the extra detail.

[mansaxel]

I agree, MS Paint is a simple-to-use program that just works, quick and easy, especially if all you are trying to do is to select a part of a photograph to post on the forum, or use the entire photo but need to make it forum friendly to fit the file size requirements with maybe some basic but simple text added on or similar. I have looked at Paint.Net and it is more like a cut down version of Photoshop and is not intuitive at all.

I use ImageMagic to do batch stuff and very simple things; like shrink an image:

Code: [Select]

convert image.jpeg -quality 75 smaller.jpeg
...which produces a new picture "smaller.jpeg" that has heavier compression.

If I want to crop a picture I usually open "Preview.app" on the mac, it's fast and can do simple things. It's also the default app for jpegs and pngen, so a simple "open image.jpeg" from the command line suffices. More advanced stuff is either Gimp or OmniGraffle.

With the exception of OmniGraffle all above is free or included in the OS.  I'll never let a company with profit as its only interest determine what I can do with my data.  That others have caved in because they or their organisations are incompetent is no reason for me -- who has managed files successfully and with minimal loss for 20+ years -- to succumb to a silly trend fuelled entirely by a profit-driven transition to a subscription model.

Yes, the cloud is shit.

[bd139]

I have looked at Paint.Net and it is more like a cut down version of Photoshop and is not intuitive at all.

Worth doing a couple of photoshoppy type tutorials. Once you "get" layers it's soooooo much better.

The use of layers is to what with to what? All I normally do with Paint is to reduce a file size to make a clickable attachment on the forum, otherwise I host it on Imgur if I want the extra detail.

It’s handy for labelling stuff, hiding bits of info, reworking things (meter legends etc), coming up with shit memes

[mnementh]

Trying to explain your TEA activities to someone who is “non-technical” can be tough. For years I've shown and tried to explain to the Lady Cop what I've done or what I'm working on and her response is puzzled looks. But while she doesn't totally understand it she at least appreciates it and encourages me when I tell her I'm having issues repairing something.

But when it comes to explaining to her coworkers or friends what I do she's at a total loss. She just can't convey what TEA is...

Oh, there's a simple explanation... we're all nucking futs. 

But no; seriously. I've successfully explained it to my wife and several of her friends thusly:

"Okay... you know how some guys love to collect and restore antique cars or vintage tools for the nostalgia and history of the thing? Well, for engineering nerds, that urge exists for classic test equipment. They are our vintage tools. You see that scope right there? It was in use at NASA when they were designing and flying the Space Shuttle. It might have had something to do with all those historic missions."

*blink-blink*

"You see this crusty old signal generator? Its grandfather was one of the ones that made HP a household name. Without that signal generator, Disney couldn't have made Fantasia the amazing piece of musical history it is. Without HP and Tektronix, the modern world... all the technology we take for granted... would be completely different, and we would probably be decades behind where we are now. Using these old instruments... handling the same tools that made all those great advances possible... it is our way of communing with our engineer ancestors."

"Okaaayyy... so it's like collecting antiques. I get that. Just don't spend the house payment on it, okayyy?"

Not a perfect explanation. But at least enough to grok what we're all aboot.

mnem
moo...?

[Zucca]

Absolutely avoiding anything released by Adobe!

amen bro!
I tossed office and the next in the line is Adobe...

what I use is the stupid and brilliant greenshot:

1) the image I take on my phone is automagically dropboxed on my pc folder
2) open the image on my pc
3) crop the image with screencapture greenshot
4) save with automatic setting on the desktop
5) post it on the www

since it is a screenshot it is already very very little and compressed, bonus I can add some circle or arrows as I like with greenshot

example:

[med6753]

Trying to explain your TEA activities to someone who is “non-technical” can be tough. For years I've shown and tried to explain to the Lady Cop what I've done or what I'm working on and her response is puzzled looks. But while she doesn't totally understand it she at least appreciates it and encourages me when I tell her I'm having issues repairing something.

But when it comes to explaining to her coworkers or friends what I do she's at a total loss. She just can't convey what TEA is...

Oh, there's a simple explanation... we're all nucking futs. 

But no; seriously. I've successfully explained it to my wife and several of her friends thusly:

"Okay... you know how some guys love to collect and restore antique cars or vintage tools for the nostalgia and history of the thing? Well, for engineering nerds, that urge exists for classic test equipment. They are our vintage tools. You see that scope right there? It was in use at NASA when they were designing and flying the Space Shuttle. It might have had something to do with all those historic missions."

*blink-blink*

"You see this crusty old signal generator? Its grandfather was one of the ones that made HP a household name. Without that signal generator, Disney couldn't have made Fantasia the amazing piece of musical history it is. Without HP and Tektronix, the modern world... all the technology we take for granted... would be completely different, and we would probably be decades behind where we are now. Using these old instruments... handling the same tools that made all those great advances possible... it is our way of communing with our engineer ancestors."

"Okaaayyy... so it's like collecting antiques. I get that. Just don't spend the house payment on it, okayyy?"

Not a perfect explanation. But at least enough to grok what we're all aboot.

mnem
moo...?

I've tried similar explanations but it doesn't seem to get through. She's only 2 years younger than me so she grew up in the age where TV's, radios, etc went from vacuum tubes to transistor. But to her, since she was just an "end user", it's completely foreign and transparent to her. So while she recognizes that the stuff is old that's about the extent of it.

An excellent example of this is the movie "Hidden Figures". If you don't know what it's about go read up on it. Anyway, the woman in this scene successfully programs an IBM 7090 computer that NASA bought but had no idea how to use it. In the background is either a Type 535A or 545A on a cart. I can't find the actual scene where she connects the scope to the 7090. We watched that movie together and afterwards I explained what she was doing. Lady Cop's response? I knew you would know exactly what she was doing but I don't get it.

     

Edit...click on the link to go directly to YouTube and it will play.

[mnementh]

What I noticed was that it seemed the card reader was feeding multiple cards at the same time... but I think that was just a trick of the lighting, photography, etc.

Not sure aboot whether the cards were fed in the right way or not....? 

And shouldn't it have to read the entire stack in BEFORE any results came out the other end...?

Oh, and was the scope really an appropriate tool for the diag work she was supposedly trying to accomplish? Usually it seems that whenever the scene is aboot NASA... whether appropriate or not...  movie makers automatically sprinkle scopes and counters around like it was a glazed donut... 

mnem