Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Saskia]

if that is as thunderous as your spiders are venomous then I'd rather be somewhere else ... (which I am, but ... whatever ...)

But the Flowers 

The Inland Deserts are home to several nasty species of Snake and Scorpions are more of an issue in the desert than the Spiders  I would drop some photos up but they are on a CD and well who has one of those ancient devices on their PC these days....

One should avoid this one:

I would like one of those for our winter garden. The burgler comes in. But will he get  out ?

The antidote is in the safe, the combination is: get-lost. Good luck, you have 4 minutes ...

[bd139]

Now there’s an idea. Added snake pit before the moat in the evil lair.

[Cerebus]

I would generally support bean in that comment, while our snakes can be deadly - they are mostly going about there own business - they only usually get pissed if you are not looking where you are going and nearly or actually tread on one. While the inland taipan has the most deadly venom (i think world wide) its cousin the eastern brown is much more common and widely found in the bush surrounding our cities. It is, I think, number 2 on the poison rank.
The national park (Cleland) where i cycle and walk 3-5 times a week is a known habitat - I only hear or see one once or twice a year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_brown_snake?wprov=sfla1
Now  drop bears - they are something else!

Like you say, snakes are pretty chill if you leave them alone. Now the drop bears, what I dislike is the cold calculating waiting in the trees for prey with that half asleep look in their eyes as if "butter wouldn't melt" - it makes a Leopard hanging out by a water crossing for a passing herd of wildebeest seem benign in comparison.

[mnementh]

if that is as thunderous as your spiders are venomous then I'd rather be somewhere else ... (which I am, but ... whatever ...)

But the Flowers  The Inland Deserts are home to several nasty species of Snake and Scorpions are more of an issue in the desert than the Spiders 

I would drop some photos up but they are on a CD and well who has one of those ancient devices on their PC these days....

*starts to say something, but thinks better of it...*

mnem
"I nevah met da storage device in question..."

[mnementh]

Getting set up to try my hand at fixing the daughter's iPad; going to practice on some scrap boards first. Finally found a good use for that Cr1pt0r-prone D-Link DNS-320 NAS; MB has lots of BGA for me to practice on.

A smartphone sticky-pad seems to work well at holding the workpiece right where I put it; I borrowed my daughter's Unicorn Snot play putty to hold the thermometer in place. This should give me some crude process control for preheating the MB and terminal temperature monitoring. 

I've done a fair bit of hot-air rework replacing FETs and STM32s on FCs and ESCs, but it has been easily 2 years since my last. This station is new to me, so I need to get used to how it heats up and responds with different nozzles, etc. Also, I'm just a bit leery after the prelim prep work on the iPud MB.

mnem
tssssst...

[AVGresponding]

I miss Steve Irwin   

[bd139]

Ah yes. Comedy gold moment from him:

[mnementh]

Yeah... I miss Steve. It was awesome living in a world with him in it.

mnem
*sigh*

[med6753]

Woo-Hoo.  We now have Amazon Prime Direct delivery in our area.  Just saw a Prime truck out front.

That means no more  from Uncle Sam's Pony Service, at least for Prime.

[mnementh]

   Getting set up to try my hand at fixing the daughter's iPad; going to practice on some scrap boards first.
Finally found a good use for that Cr1pt0r-prone D-Link DNS-320 NAS; MB has lots of BGA for me to practice on.

A smartphone sticky-pad seems to work well at holding the workpiece right where I put it; I borrowed my daughter's Unicorn Snot play putty to hold the thermometer in place. This should give me some crude process control for preheating the MB and terminal temperature monitoring. 

I've done a fair bit of hot-air rework replacing FETs and STM32s on FCs and ESCs, but it has been easily 2 years since my last. This station is new to me, so I need to get used to how it heats up and responds with different nozzles, etc. Also, I'm just a bit leery after the prelim prep work on the iPud MB.

mnem
tssssst...

Preheating seemed to hit the entropic wall at aboot 150°C with the 8mm nozzle set at 380°C; it just wouldn't go any higher.  Bumped set temp up to 410°C and started heating the chip; less than 30 seconds and it floated at aboot 180°C on the thermo.

Here the pads have been retinned with lead-bearing solder as is usual practice found in numerous iPwn repair vids; with a little care you can usually get "just the right dome" to be able to just plop & reflow the new chip with some fresh flux. I wanted to practice this method beforehand; however unlike the 1610A3 this is a stepped package chip, so requires the complete prep of desoldering both sides and reballing. 



That, however, is not my biggest hurdle right now; board density is. This board is an order of magnitude more miniaturized than my practice PCB. To give you an idea: that chip is 2.1mm², and there is a 6x6 grid of pads under it.

I just plain can't see it clearly unless I use both my magnifying visor and the magnifying lamp located right over the work. Trying to do it from an angle just distorts everything to illegibility. The focal length of this combination puts the lens of the lamp 50-60mm directly above the work, and there simply is not any way to get the hot air nozzle anywhere near the chip.

I guess I'm gonna have to start shopping a cheap digital microscope; either that or swallow my tinkerer pride and send the board off to someone who's better equipped.

mnem
Murphy's a bitch, and she has puppies.

[bd139]

I work on the principle that new stuff with AppleCare is cheaper and less stressful than the rework kit 

Anyway family tech support here as well  .  Had to go and replace an 8 year old blown up optiplex 360. Decided the lazy option would be to replace it with exactly the same unit so windows doesn’t get personality disorder suddenly. Got one for £30 and the fuckers had hot snotted the damn hard disk in it because there was no caddy    Managed to clean all the glue out, swapped the disk out and it booted up. Of course activation was shot and it didn’t store the key in the idiot’s Ms account. So off to use an MSDN MAK key (fuck you Microsoft I don’t care) and bam, MS activation servers down. Argh. Got to go back there next week with a key because they can barely even log into their spoogebox ffs.

Best part? I can finally wear blue gloves and a face mask while doing this shit without looking like a lunatic!

[mnementh]

That Optiplex should be new enough that the key is in BIOS. Try "I don't have a key" on install (if you have to reinstall) and once it can connect to the servers it should authenticate.

I know I screwed m'self on this one; however, my experience told me that average life of an iPud (based on the age of the ones I've bought to fix) is ~6 years. I figured if I got 4 years out of it, I'd be ready to upgrade anyways, and that much AppleCare costs as much as the unit itself. 

Lets face it; this one died way young; I wound up on the bell end and the bell clocked me a good one.

mnem
 

[med6753]

I just checked. My Nokia Lumia 925 is now 7 years old and still working fine even though it's strangled by Win 8.1. Granted, many of the apps have gone bye-bye due to no support but the hardware itself (and the original battery) are still, to quote the English way, in good nick.

Now that I've said that watch Murphy make a monkey of me. 

[bd139]

That Optiplex should be new enough that the key is in BIOS. Try "I don't have a key" on install (if you have to reinstall) and once it can connect to the servers it should authenticate.

I know I screwed m'self on this one; however, my experience told me that average life of an iPud (based on the age of the ones I've bought to fix) is ~6 years. I figured if I got 4 years out of it, I'd be ready to upgrade anyways, and that much AppleCare costs as much as the unit itself. 

Lets face it; this one died way young; I wound up on the bell end and the bell clocked me a good one.

mnem
 

Unfortunately it looks like it was originally an official MS refurb so they nuke the hardware keys and install a new refurb win 10 key grr.

Got 6 years out of my middle one’s 2013 air so that’s about right. Just replaced it with a new standard iPad. That was £329 and AppleCare is £69 here for two years. Will sell for £200 after two years (second hand prices are insane here) so that works out £8.25 a month over 24 months. Trick is to sell it then and let someone else deal with the mid life issues  . Just swapped my XR out for a 12 for the same reason - I don’t want to have to pay to fix it at some point. 24 months out of that XR no problems though 

But yep you got an early failure there. Sucks. Been there a few times

[bd139]

I just checked. My Nokia Lumia 925 is now 7 years old and still working fine even though it's strangled by Win 8.1. Granted, many of the apps have gone bye-bye due to no support but the hardware itself (and the original battery) are still, to quote the English way, in good nick.

Now that I've said that watch Murphy make a monkey of me. 

TBF the Lumias were really well made apart from the 720, which popped a screen falling out of my poket when I was sitting on a soft carpet  . I had a 620 which I threw at a brick wall. The back came off and the battery came out but it was fine  .

It’ll blow up in the night and burn your house down now 

Anyway some pain to share. I did this a couple of years back. Top end 15” fully stacked rMBP. No AppleCare. We all suffer sometimes 

[Robert763]

Another great bit of UK weapon control. Had an email from neighborhood watch about a weapons surrender scheme. I clicked the link to find that apparently it will be illegal have one of these (pic below)
in your own home next year  I didn't even know that it's already illegal to have one in public, make or sell one (no one told ebay)
Yes it's a kids toy, but  it meets the description here
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1988/2019/made
"the weapon sometimes known as a ‘blowpipe’ or ‘blow gun’, being a hollow tube out of which hard pellets or darts are shot by the use of breath;"
The one pictured even comes with ammunition! About the only vaid reason for having one would be if you were a wildlife vet and were using it to administer drugs.
The new law "Offensive Weapons Act 2019" https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/17/part/4/enacted
Now makes it illegal to own, even in private, a bunch of "weapons" that previously it was only illegal to carry in public, sell, buy or make. I can understand and agree with keeping weapons off the street and out of the hands of criminals but thi seems to just be a way of making conviction easier as they don't have to prove how you got it, just having it (there are some exemptions like antiques or work use) is an offence that you can be locked up for.
So if you are in the UK and have any unusual knives, batons, swords, throwing stars etc. you should have a look at this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offensive-weapons-act-surrender-and-compensation-scheme
If you have a at least three peashooters you bought before 2018 they are supposed to give you £14 each for them 
 
 

[Mr. Scram]

Is there a limit to how many you can sell back? Sounds like a great way of testing how well the limits of their scheme are defined, and possibly get rich but probably on the naughty list.

[Cubdriver]

Another great bit of UK weapon control. Had an email from neighborhood watch about a weapons surrender scheme. I clicked the link to find that apparently it will be illegal have one of these (pic below)
in your own home next year  I didn't even know that it's already illegal to have one in public, make or sell one (no one told ebay)
Yes it's a kids toy, but  it meets the description here
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1988/2019/made
"the weapon sometimes known as a ‘blowpipe’ or ‘blow gun’, being a hollow tube out of which hard pellets or darts are shot by the use of breath;"
The one pictured even comes with ammunition! About the only vaid reason for having one would be if you were a wildlife vet and were using it to administer drugs.
The new law "Offensive Weapons Act 2019" https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/17/part/4/enacted
Now makes it illegal to own, even in private, a bunch of "weapons" that previously it was only illegal to carry in public, sell, buy or make. I can understand and agree with keeping weapons off the street and out of the hands of criminals but thi seems to just be a way of making conviction easier as they don't have to prove how you got it, just having it (there are some exemptions like antiques or work use) is an offence that you can be locked up for.
So if you are in the UK and have any unusual knives, batons, swords, throwing stars etc. you should have a look at this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offensive-weapons-act-surrender-and-compensation-scheme
If you have a at least three peashooters you bought before 2018 they are supposed to give you £14 each for them 
 
 

Churchill must be spinning in his grave...   

-Pat

[Robert763]

Is there a limit to how many you can sell back? Sounds like a great way of testing how well the limits of their scheme are defined, and possibly get rich but probably on the naughty list.

No limit but you have to prove that you aquired them before 2018. You need 3 because you can't claim less then £30. If you did buy a lot and tried to get a payment for them and they found out it would be fraud as well as a weapons offence.

[bd139]

Shame information is free isn’t it 

https://ironwolf008.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/sten-gun-mk2.pdf

Honestly the best tactical weapons are now available in toy shops and Amazon. Shooting someone is so 1800s when you can buy remotely piloted munitions cheaply.

[Specmaster]

if that is as thunderous as your spiders are venomous then I'd rather be somewhere else ... (which I am, but ... whatever ...)

But the Flowers  The Inland Deserts are home to several nasty species of Snake and Scorpions are more of an issue in the desert than the Spiders 

I would drop some photos up but they are on a CD and well who has one of those ancient devices on their PC these days....

*starts to say something, but thinks better of it...*

mnem
"I nevah met da storage device in question..."

I do for one, I have 2 of them actually

[mnementh]

I refuse to answer, on the grounds that I may embarrass myself.

I just checked. My Nokia Lumia 925 is now 7 years old and still working fine even though it's strangled by Win 8.1. Granted, many of the apps have gone bye-bye due to no support but the hardware itself (and the original battery) are still, to quote the English way, in good nick.

Now that I've said that watch Murphy make a monkey of me. 

TBF the Lumias were really well made apart from the 720, which popped a screen falling out of my poket when I was sitting on a soft carpet  . I had a 620 which I threw at a brick wall. The back came off and the battery came out but it was fine  .

It’ll blow up in the night and burn your house down now 

Anyway some pain to share. I did this a couple of years back. Top end 15” fully stacked rMBP. No AppleCare. We all suffer sometimes 

Can't blame you for throwing the 620 at a wall; after the sumblime bit of engineering they manifested in the 520/521, the 620/621 was a breath of fresh horseshit.  Sent mine back after 3 days; bought a used 521 again.

mnem
*currently trying to fix effed-up mobile data problems on my new phone... again.*

[Saskia]

Shame information is free isn’t it 

https://ironwolf008.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/sten-gun-mk2.pdf

Honestly the best tactical weapons are now available in toy shops and Amazon. Shooting someone is so 1800s when you can buy remotely piloted munitions cheaply.

Do you happen to have a spare astronavigation system by any chance ? I want to test something ..

[bd139]

Shame information is free isn’t it 

https://ironwolf008.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/sten-gun-mk2.pdf

Honestly the best tactical weapons are now available in toy shops and Amazon. Shooting someone is so 1800s when you can buy remotely piloted munitions cheaply.

Do you happen to have a spare astronavigation system by any chance ? I want to test something ..

Can probably build one out of cheap shit from China these days 

I was looking at using OpenCV for IR seeking 

[tggzzz]

Another great bit of UK weapon control. Had an email from neighborhood watch about a weapons surrender scheme. I clicked the link to find that apparently it will be illegal have one of these (pic below)
in your own home next year  I didn't even know that it's already illegal to have one in public, make or sell one (no one told ebay)
Yes it's a kids toy, but  it meets the description here
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1988/2019/made
"the weapon sometimes known as a ‘blowpipe’ or ‘blow gun’, being a hollow tube out of which hard pellets or darts are shot by the use of breath;"
The one pictured even comes with ammunition! About the only vaid reason for having one would be if you were a wildlife vet and were using it to administer drugs.
The new law "Offensive Weapons Act 2019" https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/17/part/4/enacted
Now makes it illegal to own, even in private, a bunch of "weapons" that previously it was only illegal to carry in public, sell, buy or make. I can understand and agree with keeping weapons off the street and out of the hands of criminals but thi seems to just be a way of making conviction easier as they don't have to prove how you got it, just having it (there are some exemptions like antiques or work use) is an offence that you can be locked up for.
So if you are in the UK and have any unusual knives, batons, swords, throwing stars etc. you should have a look at this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offensive-weapons-act-surrender-and-compensation-scheme
If you have a at least three peashooters you bought before 2018 they are supposed to give you £14 each for them 
 
 

Oooh.

I've got some small bore copper tubing coiled up in the garage somewhere.  If I cut that up into 30cm lengths and put a 3d printed mouthpiece on them, I should make enough to buy some interesting test equipment. The curvature is an experimental technique for shooting round corners, of course.