Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Seeing as I already have extracted the actual "oven" lining with the element removed from the bread maker, I suppose I could try inverting it and placing over a small gas ring on the hob with a meter connected reading the resistance to ground of the element and put the gas ring on a low heat to get the element to dry out slowly and expel any moisture absorbed during storage.

[bd139]

Ugh bread making machines. I've a failed loaf here that someone made nearly 30 years ago with one of them as a reminder never to use them. I'll post a picture when I get a few minutes. Like my old Fiat, "nothing but aggro". Baking sheet or a can and the oven - job done!

[tautech]

Ugh bread making machines. I've a failed loaf here that someone made nearly 30 years ago with one of them as a reminder never to use them. I'll post a picture when I get a few minutes. Like my old Fiat, "nothing but aggro". Baking sheet or a can and the oven - job done!

The SO polished breadmaker recipes in our NZ lockdown back last March after her first one was a complete flop and came out as a small windowless building block.
Proper breadmaker yeast and #8 eggs along with warming any liquids added to the mix and now most of her loaves now nearly push the lid open. 
Haven't bought bread for ~10 months.

[VK5RC]

OK it's not electronic TE  but still sort of measuring equipment.
I have been restoring my late father's Rabone carpenter combination square - some surface rust, came off with either rubbing on an oilstone or 600 grit wet and dry.
The level glass had been broken since I can recall - that is before 1970. I am not sure of its vintage but would estimate mid 1950s.
After cleaning - I am a bit of a fan of gun oil as a rust inhibitor, either that or spray lanolin - but I tend to use that for outdoor metal work.
Perhaps it's biggest draw back is that it is imperial units only. Still runs smoothly and firms up nicely with the screw, doesn't change its position/squareness either.
Rob
PS I have ordered one of Dave's new HH DMM -BM786, hopefully not too long - it has hit the postage system.
Edit, a replacement level glass is coming from the UK 😁

[tggzzz]

Ugh bread making machines. I've a failed loaf here that someone made nearly 30 years ago with one of them as a reminder never to use them. I'll post a picture when I get a few minutes. Like my old Fiat, "nothing but aggro". Baking sheet or a can and the oven - job done!

My Panasonic has only failed once - when I forgot to put the mixing paddle in! If I get another one, I'll splash out on having the top container that allows bits to be added late in the mixing cycle.

The amount of water is critical, and I've had to change it a little bit to get exactly the texture I like.

[med6753]

Seeing as I already have extracted the actual "oven" lining with the element removed from the bread maker, I suppose I could try inverting it and placing over a small gas ring on the hob with a meter connected reading the resistance to ground of the element and put the gas ring on a low heat to get the element to dry out slowly and expel any moisture absorbed during storage.

I don't know if I'd trust that heating element even if you manage to bake out all the moisture....if that's what the issue is and apparently that's just a guess at this point. The RCD is telling you something and if it were me that bread maker would wind up in the trash if a new element can't be found.

[beanflying]

Best thing you can do with a bread maker is the following then make Bread in an Oven. The Element is disconnected in this case and it is only used as a heat resistant agitation device. Sorts out the element issue and gets you much better bread in the Oven

[factory]

Seeing as I already have extracted the actual "oven" lining with the element removed from the bread maker, I suppose I could try inverting it and placing over a small gas ring on the hob with a meter connected reading the resistance to ground of the element and put the gas ring on a low heat to get the element to dry out slowly and expel any moisture absorbed during storage.

You may get problems with moisture from the burnt gas collecting in the lining if it's upside down. 
Those elements from cooker rings also seem to collect moisture if not used, as has probably already been mentioned.
At work there are resistors of the same design fitted to DC motors that also collect moisture, but I'm not sure if it's from them sitting around awaiting serving or the wash process, we do have large ovens & vacuum dryers for the motors. The resistors are taken off & dried in a smaller oven if they don't pass the insulation test.

Maybe someone knows if the insulation is similar or the same as the Pyro cable that was being discussed a while back. 

David

[mnementh]

Okay, I misunderstood the source of the data.  I wouldn't have asked if I did understand.    I thought the point of the project was a new learning model/methodology in and of itself.

Thanks for taking the time. Now I'm a little less ignorant.

"The git" is just a term some of the programmers I've worked with on FC and ESC projects used to refer to any specific repository. I figured it was common slang.   

mnem
 

No worries.

It will be a bit more difficult anyway.
This FPGA gizmo comes on a PCI-E FPGA mining card which means that it does not have the fancy connectors  that you would want for all those I/O functions you'd normally want to use.

This means that I have to find a way to repurpose the card to
1) use as a more or less generic accellerator card
2) find a way to access it from Vivado
3) pytorch is dead as far as I am concerned (and as NMT goes). The framework to be used is tensorflow.
4) hack OpenNMT to use tensorflow, integrate it into my toolchain and do a PoC tensorflow training for a popular language, let's say Klingon
5) set up some basic test suite to deploy the tensorflow model (and test it), ideally with a REST API
6) remodel that stuff and check if I can use the xDNN or the FINN toolkit to generate deployable FPGA models with it
7) test the POC on the FPGA
if successful run a real life test with a larger model (let's say English -> French with 15 million data sets out of a 275 million pool)
9) check if training can be ported to such FPGA (if not, well, too bad ...)
10) benchmark it against what we have now (4x Tesla P100 for training, 400 CPU cores for the deployed models)
11) find someone who pays for all of that ...

Oh, so you do have hopes of a roadmap to monetizing this project somewhere down the road which doesn't violate the laws of physics...? 

You're doing better than 98% of us in here, if that's the case.

I guess I'm just easily excited when I think I see something really new.   

mnem
q͡χɑpʰ.ˈlɑʔ

[mnementh]

*gives look like a tree full of owls*

Is it like this?


 

That one, definitely. 

Or this one, multiplexed similarly:

mnem
    A bucketfull of owls...?   

[mnementh]

Seeing as I already have extracted the actual "oven" lining with the element removed from the bread maker, I suppose I could try inverting it and placing over a small gas ring on the hob with a meter connected reading the resistance to ground of the element and put the gas ring on a low heat to get the element to dry out slowly and expel any moisture absorbed during storage.

I don't know if I'd trust that heating element even if you manage to bake out all the moisture....if that's what the issue is and apparently that's just a guess at this point. The RCD is telling you something and if it were me that bread maker would wind up in the trash if a new element can't be found.

Naaahhh... this is a known "thing". Even my grand-dad knew aboot the phenomenon; the element is wrapped in glass or asbestos fiber (back in the day; dunno aboot now) inside the metal shell. It is susceptible to collecting moisture from the air. More recent designs which have a stepped diameter inner core and silicone rubber seals at the connector ends alleviate the problem, but do not 100% cure it.

Baking the element is a proven acceptable practice, and the results are pretty easy to verify, even in the field.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Nice score; finding one with the caps still on the knobs. 

Gonna find a replacement NE2 indicator, or epoxy the original back together...? I've done both.

mnem
 

[factory]

A recent arrival was this HP 6237B power supply, it was described as scrap, I put a low bid on it & won it for approx £37 including postage.


A quick look inside when it arrived didn't reveal any obvious reason for why the fuse had blown, after finding a replacement and testing it, all seemed fine (the earth wire was reattached first).


Yesterday when I gave it a proper clean I noticed a hidden reason as to why the fuse had blown and why the seller had described it as scrap, it must have put out a lot of extra fragrant smoke.    Yes another classic case of RIFA madness.   



A little searching found a good used plastic film based replacement capacitor that fitted the hole spacing, the power lamp also got replaced with the only spare I have (the original had disintegrated), need to find some more just in case. And I re-terminated the mains lead as someone had soldered the wire ends.



David

P.S. had to redo this post as the some text wasn't showing up between the last six pictures.   

[Mortymore]

Since it's been rare for me, I'm taking the opportunity to report a new addition to the addiction.
Siglent SPD3303X-E, that might lose the 'E' one of these days.

[factory]

Nice score; finding one with the caps still on the knobs. 

Gonna find a replacement NE2 indicator, or epoxy the original back together...? I've done both.

mnem
 

I'm a bit surprized the HP 6237B didn't go for more considering all the knobs were complete.

I should have been clearer, it's the plastic housing that has disintegrated not the lamp, it's crazed with cracks all over so I decided against gluing it and fitted a used spare instead, the part number is 2910S17 (replacement is 2910S21) with an external resistor.
Forgot to take a finished picture. 

David

[mnementh]

Yeah, I know exactly how they fall apart.

I understand that epoxying the thing back together essentially makes it so the glass bulb is holding it all together; OTOH, a NE2's glass envelope is pretty strong & the mechanical stress is pretty close to zero. I've epoxied them back together when a suitable replacement wasn't handy; no regrets.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Since it's been rare for me, I'm taking the opportunity to report a new addition to the addiction.
Siglent SPD3303X-E, that might lose the 'E' one of these days.   

LOL... at first glance I thought that thing was a arb... 

mnem
not sure I'd want a PSU that's smarter than me...

[factory]

Yeah, I know exactly how they fall apart.

I understand that epoxying the thing back together essentially makes it so the glass bulb is holding it all together; OTOH, a NE2's glass envelope is pretty strong & the mechanical stress is pretty close to zero. I've epoxied them back together when a suitable replacement wasn't handy; no regrets.

mnem
 

May have to try that, I did put the bits of the broken one back in the spares hoard.

David

[bd139]

A recent arrival was this HP 6237B power supply, it was described as scrap, I put a low bid on it & won it for approx £37 including postage.


A quick look inside when it arrived didn't reveal any obvious reason for why the fuse had blown, after finding a replacement and testing it, all seemed fine (the earth wire was reattached first).


Yesterday when I gave it a proper clean I noticed a hidden reason as to why the fuse had blown and why the seller had described it as scrap, it must have put out a lot of extra fragrant smoke.    Yes another classic case of RIFA madness.   



A little searching found a good used plastic film based replacement capacitor that fitted the hole spacing, the power lamp also got replaced with the only spare I have (the original had disintegrated), need to find some more just in case. And I re-terminated the mains lead as someone had soldered the wire ends.



David

P.S. had to redo this post as the some text wasn't showing up between the last six pictures.   

Glad that went to a good home. I was considering it myself

6237B is an extremely useful power supply, slightly more useful than the 6236B IMHO.

[BU508A]

not sure I'd want a PSU that's smarter than me...

You mean, like the 6237B from David?   

[BU508A]

Two days ago there was another 6237B in the bay. It was sold for 85 Euro.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/1-St-HP-6237B-3-fach-Netzteil-0-18V-1A-0-20v-0-5A-Geraet-funkt-R-2-/133620390924

[mnementh]

not sure I'd want a PSU that's smarter than me...

You mean, like the 6237B from David?   

Well, I cannae deny it; may as well own it. Yup, guilty as charged. 

A recent arrival was this HP 6237B power supply, it was described as scrap, I put a low bid on it & won it for approx £37 including postage.

Glad that went to a good home. I was considering it myself    6237B is an extremely useful power supply, slightly more useful than the 6236B IMHO.

Yeah, at £37 delivered I'd say that was a good candidate for a ; well scored. 

[Cerebus]

Seeing as I already have extracted the actual "oven" lining with the element removed from the bread maker, I suppose I could try inverting it and placing over a small gas ring on the hob with a meter connected reading the resistance to ground of the element and put the gas ring on a low heat to get the element to dry out slowly and expel any moisture absorbed during storage.

Don't forget that the products of gas combustion include water vapour. So the element may actually have a lower relative humidity than the hot air + combustion products that you're trying to dry it out with. You may even make the problem worse.

I had a landlord once who tried to dry out a cellar with one of those portable gas powered industrial space heaters. He didn't appreciate that although he was warming the cellar up, he wasn't drying it out because he had introduced a new source of water vapour in the form of the exhaust gases from the space heater. He had the things running for a whole month and just made the problem worse.

[Specmaster]

Ugh bread making machines. I've a failed loaf here that someone made nearly 30 years ago with one of them as a reminder never to use them. I'll post a picture when I get a few minutes. Like my old Fiat, "nothing but aggro". Baking sheet or a can and the oven - job done!

The only problems as I see it with bread makers is that A. They are not generally large enough loaves for a whole family. B. The loaves do not turn out of the tins cleanly or easily and this is largely down to the mixing paddles being trapped in the bottom of the loaf and also because the dough gets under the paddle and also creeps down the shaft and then the paddle becomes wedged and holds the loaf in the tin.

This element that pops the RCD, has now been plugged in to a variac and has been brought up to the maximum of the variac of 2A which it achieves at 165V (earth disconnected) and the leakage is such that even after 45 mins sitting at 165V and getting very toasty, I can measure a voltage of 87V between the metal work of the element and earth so its no wonder it trips the RCD, so it will be going down the dump when the lockdown is lifted 

[Saskia]

Okay, I misunderstood the source of the data.  I wouldn't have asked if I did understand.    I thought the point of the project was a new learning model/methodology in and of itself.

Thanks for taking the time. Now I'm a little less ignorant.

"The git" is just a term some of the programmers I've worked with on FC and ESC projects used to refer to any specific repository. I figured it was common slang.   

mnem
 

No worries.

It will be a bit more difficult anyway.
This FPGA gizmo comes on a PCI-E FPGA mining card which means that it does not have the fancy connectors  that you would want for all those I/O functions you'd normally want to use.

This means that I have to find a way to repurpose the card to
1) use as a more or less generic accellerator card
2) find a way to access it from Vivado
3) pytorch is dead as far as I am concerned (and as NMT goes). The framework to be used is tensorflow.
4) hack OpenNMT to use tensorflow, integrate it into my toolchain and do a PoC tensorflow training for a popular language, let's say Klingon
5) set up some basic test suite to deploy the tensorflow model (and test it), ideally with a REST API
6) remodel that stuff and check if I can use the xDNN or the FINN toolkit to generate deployable FPGA models with it
7) test the POC on the FPGA
if successful run a real life test with a larger model (let's say English -> French with 15 million data sets out of a 275 million pool)
9) check if training can be ported to such FPGA (if not, well, too bad ...)
10) benchmark it against what we have now (4x Tesla P100 for training, 400 CPU cores for the deployed models)
11) find someone who pays for all of that ...

Oh, so you do have hopes of a roadmap to monetizing this project somewhere down the road which doesn't violate the laws of physics...? 

You're doing better than 98% of us in here, if that's the case.

I guess I'm just easily excited when I think I see something really new.   

mnem
q͡χɑpʰ.ˈlɑʔ

If I can make this fly and calculate a business case I would be getting 40 - 50% of the savings of the first year after implementation.
Which can amount for quite a bit depending on the circumstances. Last time it was about 30% of my annual salary as a one off bonus ...