Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

I’m impressed with the diode check function on the Agilent 34401A.

34401A is a joy forever.

I feel the same way aboot my 189.  It'll light up a 10W LED; these are 3 chips in series on one die.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

Sorry Med but they are called the British Isles. Eire (and Northern Ireland) is part of the British Isles, so is the Isle of Man (another separate sovereign nation) so are the Orkneys and so on. That's just what that group of islands is called.

See wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isles


I qualify for an Irish passport, so if we're going to use "Irish decent" as the arbiter of who knows what about the name of the island group that includes Eire then I strongly suspect that I'm closer to the sod than you are.

From your same source.

"The term British Isles can also be considered irritating or offensive by some[50] on the grounds that the modern association of the term British with the United Kingdom makes its application to Ireland inappropriate. "

Consider me irritated. 

Bloody snowflake! 

They've been called the British Isles since time immemorial, well before the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. The first recorded use of the term dates to about 325 BC recorded in phonetic greek (Πρεττανική) as the name used by the native Celtic inhabitants for the island group - the Pretanic Isles, those occupied by the Pretani, the painted or tattooed folk. So it's actually a Celtic name, not an English one. "Great Britain" gets its name from the island group, not the other way around. The only people who object to the "British Isles" are the occasional Irish separatists of the type regarded as 'right nutters' by their fellow countrymen and people who live in North America whose great great grandpappy once smelt a Irish barmaid's apron.

[mnementh]

A quick teardown showed mine wired similarly wrong; continuity test to the plug made absolutely certain. And really nerve-grating... the "hot" wire from the switch is made from wire in one of the universal color codes for a GND circuit. 

Those grumps corrected and a proper ESD bleeder resistor in the GND wire for the handset; I just had to do something aboot that hot lead so committed a little Sharpie abuse to turn it bloo.

It's worth noting that here in IEEE/IET Wiring Regulations land there's an official way of abusing wire when you don't have cable with the proper colour coding for what you're using them for and that is to fit sleeving of the appropriate colour at every point you terminate a wire.

So if you're wiring a lighting circuit where the blue conductor is used as a live conductor you're required to use brown sleeving at the points where it is terminated to identify it as a live conductor. Similarly you're required to sleeve any bare copper protective earth conductors (such as are found in twin-and-earth) with yellow/green sleeving. Although officially one isn't explicitly forbidden from sleeving a yellow/green PE conductor to another use, most people would say that it's a no-no but in Mem's particular case "needs must when the devil drives" - It's not like there's an NIC-EIC inspector lurking around the corner.

Officially here one can paint conductors to indicate the use but I suspect that Sharpie would be frowned upon as insufficiently permanent. (Especially if you coloured the hot phase blue given that brown is what the civilised world uses for hot on a single phase circuit, blue is neutral. I realise that in the strange world of North America white is neutral, black is hot* and that additionally blue is potentially a hot phase colour.)

*The world is big enough that at some point in history in one of the more backward states a black man will have walked past a white electrician getting his apprentice to learn to repeat by rote "Black is hot" and as he walks by, quietly he says to himself "Yes it is brother, yes it is" with a chuckle.

Fuck... you're right. It's not that the unit is wired wrong; it's a unconscionably defective power cord.  OTOH... just  look at the scrambled mess of colors on this chart; it's like Walt Disney threw up.

It's a right clusterfuck it is. Damn you C... now THAT is something I'm not gonna put up with.

mnem
thank Ifni electrons are colorblind...

[bd139]

Just make all the fucking wires black 

[Cerebus]

It's a right clusterfuck it is.

Especially when you consider that the IEC colour scheme was a relatively recent adoption here in the UK in 2004. Up until 2006 it was OK to use the old UK colour scheme which is essentially the one that AUS/NZ adopted except our third 3 phase colour was yellow, not white. So for fixed wiring most things older than 14 years old, and everything older than 16 years old, you have to contend with working with two colour schemes simultaneously - new work must be done to IEC harmonised colours.

I deeply dislike the new IEC 3 phase colouring. With dusty cables or in poor light they are far too hard to tell apart. In a mixed colour old/new scenario, the confusion of old black neutral with new black 2nd phase is an accident waiting to happen.

[mnementh]

Well, it's more insidious than that C... I looked at that chart when I was triaging the unit. I can only offer in my defense that I must have seen what I expected to see.  I have no doubt that I'm not the first poor sod that has happened to, either.

So now I'm going back to basics, and going to wire the thing correctly with a new cord. Then all that mess will be fixed proper; even if it is IEC colour-coded for you scone-eaters instead of North America, at least it will be colour-coded correctly.

First thing I did was cut the end off that defective cable, so it never gets used for anything except a source of raw wire.   

mnem
 

[med6753]

Bloody snowflake! 

They've been called the British Isles since time immemorial, well before the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. The first recorded use of the term dates to about 325 BC recorded in phonetic greek (Πρεττανική) as the name used by the native Celtic inhabitants for the island group - the Pretanic Isles, those occupied by the Pretani, the painted or tattooed folk. So it's actually a Celtic name, not an English one. "Great Britain" gets its name from the island group, not the other way around. The only people who object to the "British Isles" are the occasional Irish separatists of the type regarded as 'right nutters' by their fellow countrymen and people who live in North America whose great great grandpappy once smelt a Irish barmaid's apron.

You sound like an Irish Loyalist. And that's OK, you're entitled. 

I'd sniff her apron and anything else anytime.  : 

[Specmaster]

Well, it's more insidious than that C... I looked at that chart when I was triaging the unit. I can only offer in my defense that I must have seen what I expected to see.  I have no doubt that I'm not the first poor sod that has happened to, either.

So now I'm going back to basics, and going to wire the thing correctly with a new cord. Then all that mess will be fixed proper; even if it is IEC colour-coded for you scone-eaters instead of North America, at least it will be colour-coded correctly.

First thing I did was cut the end off that defective cable, so it never gets used for anything except a source of raw wire.   

mnem
 

Bother, now I'm going to have to tear mine down and check it, later this evening 

[AVGresponding]

Just make all the fucking wires black 

Which is how some things are indeed wired, such as immobilisers. The wire ends are numbered, and should be cut off prior to termination.

It's a right clusterfuck it is.

Especially when you consider that the IEC colour scheme was a relatively recent adoption here in the UK in 2004. Up until 2006 it was OK to use the old UK colour scheme which is essentially the one that AUS/NZ adopted except our third 3 phase colour was yellow, not white. So for fixed wiring most things older than 14 years old, and everything older than 16 years old, you have to contend with working with two colour schemes simultaneously - new work must be done to IEC harmonised colours.

I deeply dislike the new IEC 3 phase colouring. With dusty cables or in poor light they are far too hard to tell apart. In a mixed colour old/new scenario, the confusion of old black neutral with new black 2nd phase is an accident waiting to happen.

Hence the practice of "de-neutralising" the black.


It gets extra exciting when you have old and new together and neither has been sleeved or taped.

I have worked on a board where all the phases were wired in red, and black was at different points neutral, phase, and cpc.

Incontinence pants are optional.

[Specmaster]

Bloody snowflake! 

They've been called the British Isles since time immemorial, well before the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. The first recorded use of the term dates to about 325 BC recorded in phonetic greek (Πρεττανική) as the name used by the native Celtic inhabitants for the island group - the Pretanic Isles, those occupied by the Pretani, the painted or tattooed folk. So it's actually a Celtic name, not an English one. "Great Britain" gets its name from the island group, not the other way around. The only people who object to the "British Isles" are the occasional Irish separatists of the type regarded as 'right nutters' by their fellow countrymen and people who live in North America whose great great grandpappy once smelt a Irish barmaid's apron.

You sound like an Irish Loyalist. And that's OK, you're entitled. 

I'd sniff her apron and anything else anytime.  : 

Err, how about when the Lady Cop is there  , but I know what you mean, best form a queue I think 

[mnementh]

And... figures. The one time I'm actually prepared to deal with European colour codes... and the IEC cord I sacrifice to the project is North America color-coded.

Welp... at least it's the color code I actually know... and yes, this cord is wired correctly.

mnem
tzzzt.

[Specmaster]

Just make all the fucking wires black 

Which is how some things are indeed wired, such as immobilisers. The wire ends are numbered, and should be cut off prior to termination.

It's a right clusterfuck it is.

Especially when you consider that the IEC colour scheme was a relatively recent adoption here in the UK in 2004. Up until 2006 it was OK to use the old UK colour scheme which is essentially the one that AUS/NZ adopted except our third 3 phase colour was yellow, not white. So for fixed wiring most things older than 14 years old, and everything older than 16 years old, you have to contend with working with two colour schemes simultaneously - new work must be done to IEC harmonised colours.

I deeply dislike the new IEC 3 phase colouring. With dusty cables or in poor light they are far too hard to tell apart. In a mixed colour old/new scenario, the confusion of old black neutral with new black 2nd phase is an accident waiting to happen.

Hence the practice of "de-neutralising" the black.


It gets extra exciting when you have old and new together and neither has been sleeved or taped.

I have worked on a board where all the phases were wired in red, and black was at different points neutral, phase, and cpc.

Incontinence pants are optional.

A few years ago, I was employed in one of GEC's factories as the permanent electrical engineer for the entire site, to replace the old one who was retiring after being there for a number of years. Imagine my shock horror to discover when one of the machines developed a fault, that everything was wired in Green/Yellow ground cables, Star Delta motor starters the lot, all wired the same way. The general manager was less than impressed when I started to order up new rolls of cable by the dozen in order to slowly commence the complete rewiring of the entire site, including the office block, which was also wired the same. It transpired that the old engineer was self-taught, but how the hell did he get the job in the first instance baffles me   

[mnementh]

Hence the practice of "de-neutralising" the black. It gets extra exciting when you have old and new together and neither has been sleeved or taped. I have worked on a board where all the phases were wired in red, and black was at different points neutral, phase, and cpc.

Incontinence pants are optional.

Yes, in all honesty that was where I was at when I was first triaging this unit... and the reason why I just double-checked everything with a meter and worked from that resultant mental wiring map.

I dunno... at our age, maybe those pants shouldn't be optional...

mnem
*toddles off to the washroom for the umpteenth time today...*

[mansaxel]

I deeply dislike the new IEC 3 phase colouring. With dusty cables or in poor light they are far too hard to tell apart. In a mixed colour old/new scenario, the confusion of old black neutral with new black 2nd phase is an accident waiting to happen.

I'm a bit more forgiving. Mostly because we've had that scheme or something pretty like it (black with white stripe instead of grey) as long as I've dared do mains, and before that too.

It's 50 years since we did the last major change here which was making PE green/yellow instead of red. I've still got traces of it in my house; the garage has a few light fitting cables with the old scheme.

Phase colours I always distrust, and measure instead. Safer that way.

[Cerebus]

You sound like an Irish Loyalist. And that's OK, you're entitled. 

Actually I'm a republican, my Grandpappy was from the South.

For accusing my family of having Loyalist sympathies my family is now obliged by Irish custom and practice to start a centuries long feud with your family. Nothing personal, it's just how it's done. I'll just go and polish my shillelagh. 

[mansaxel]

Well, it's more insidious than that C... I looked at that chart when I was triaging the unit. I can only offer in my defense that I must have seen what I expected to see.  I have no doubt that I'm not the first poor sod that has happened to, either.

So now I'm going back to basics, and going to wire the thing correctly with a new cord. Then all that mess will be fixed proper; even if it is IEC colour-coded for you scone-eaters instead of North America, at least it will be colour-coded correctly.

First thing I did was cut the end off that defective cable, so it never gets used for anything except a source of raw wire.   

mnem
 

I don't get this. Why is it so important to know where phase and neutral are in a single-phase outlet? IMNSHO it's much easier to always assume both are lethal.  To think otherwise just opens for bad idea bingo season, like the All-American 5 and its guitar amp cousins. :puke:

[med6753]

You sound like an Irish Loyalist. And that's OK, you're entitled. 

Actually I'm a republican, my Grandpappy was from the South.

For accusing my family of having Loyalist sympathies my family is now obliged by Irish custom and practice to start a centuries long feud with your family. Nothing personal, it's just how it's done. I'll just go and polish my shillelagh. 

Hey, the clans have been fighting among themselves for hundreds of years. Why stop now? 

[Cerebus]

A few years ago, I was employed in one of GEC's factories as the permanent electrical engineer for the entire site, to replace the old one who was retiring after being there for a number of years. Imagine my shock horror to discover when one of the machines developed a fault, that everything was wired in Green/Yellow ground cables, Star Delta motor starters the lot, all wired the same way. The general manager was less than impressed when I started to order up new rolls of cable by the dozen in order to slowly commence the complete rewiring of the entire site, including the office block, which was also wired the same. It transpired that the old engineer was self-taught, but how the hell did he get the job in the first instance baffles me   

Arrrgggghhhh! That's scary! I've seen some abortions of wiring jobs in my time, most of them perpetrated by builders, some by supposed professionals, but that takes the biscuit. All it would take is a bad day and the green/yellow wire from the equipotential bonding (assuming he knew what that was) gets confused with the green/yellow wire from one of the phases and ...

[Saskia]

ok, hubby back at home and watching strange stuff. Taboo or whatever it's called
Worked on the application for his official "handicapped" card, need to submit after his next visit to a dermatologist.

*sigh*
An RTX 2070 in a computer I sold blew up. FFS.  Need to replace it. Bloody hell, this is the 2nd time that an Asus 2070 blew up. (in fact both that I had from Asus went 

<-- not happy.

[bd139]

That’s a shit with that RTX. I’m actually slightly scared of some of these GPUs. The RX550 I had caused power problems, the 1660 has fuckity fans on it. Just seems a lot of cash for some seriously shit QA.

[Saskia]

yarp. Not happy.

[Ice-Tea]

ok, hubby back at home and watching strange stuff. Taboo or whatever it's called
Worked on the application for his official "handicapped" card, need to submit after his next visit to a dermatologist.

*sigh*
An RTX 2070 in a computer I sold blew up. FFS.  Need to replace it. Bloody hell, this is the 2nd time that an Asus 2070 blew up. (in fact both that I had from Asus went 

<-- not happy.

Are you on the hook for those?

*Looks suspiciously to the RTX2060 in his laptop...*

[Saskia]

my Zotac 2060 and 2070 have been running for days without probs, the Asus quit after 10 h. the replacement did so, too.

I am waiting for a 3060ti to arrive so that I can give this guy a proper replacement (no, I'll keep the 3060 for myself, it has fresh warranty and is not from Asus).

[Saskia]

on a more lighter side of life, Canon dropped me an email that I could indeed expect cashback for the heavily discounted RP plus the RF15-35. This brings the price for the combo down most significantly (i.e. -> less than 2000€), list would be about 3600 or so.

Also I managed to grab an EF16-35 f/4 to go with the 5DM4. Got a 60% discount, will most likely get another cashback.

If it had not been for those MASSIVE discounts, I would not have bought the stuff.

[Robert763]

Just make all the fucking wires black 

Virtually all wiring on aircraft is white. Exceptions are twisted pair/triple/quad (various), test intrumentation (orange) and armament circuits (red).
They do have identification printed along their length.