Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[AVGresponding]

Good grief, people are dumb.

I just watched a used 110V tool transformer sell for more than the retail price. Do these feckwits not know how to use a search engine?
 

[bd139]

Those BNCs are definitely not off the shelf items. 100% Tektronix specific ones. That's why you'll only ever see me buying the low end units with munted connectors as they are COTS parts as per: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-tds210-teardown-and-bnc-replacement/

As for the feckwits, I sold my GTX 1660 for more than I paid for it so yep! 

[mnementh]

This makes me so angry, just seems so unnecessary:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tektronix-TDS-714L-Four-Channel-Long-Recorder-Colour-DSO/393085246948

That seller, Pro-Avit.london has had a lot of equipment with similar damage. It's obviously deliberate and probably malicious. I've come across similar when a company went bust or was taken over and people laid off. Someone taking the view "if I can't have it, I'll make sure you can't have it either".

I've also bought a beat up looking computer base unit at a bankrupcy auction and on opening it up found it stuffed full of memory modues and co-processors in anti-stactic bags. Someone had stripped all the extra memory out of the othe machines and stashed it. Presumably they were intend to make off with the "broken" one or buy it at auction. I don't know if it was done at the auction house or the original company. This was back when memory was worth a lot.

When the MOD used to have auctions by the stillage and before CCTV you would see similar thingsgoing on. Hiding small valuable parts in oter boxes, splitting matched items between lots etc during viewing.

Yep, that sounds about right to me as well. I see that it was calibrated 1/5/2019 so it is highly likely that it was malicious damage. I also know that they get a lot of their stuff from the BBC and other broadcast companies, and he often has video cameras, lenses and recording equipment as well.

I doubt that the scope could be repaired cheaply either, those BNC's look special to me and the range selectors I'm pretty sure would not be off the shelf standard parts either

Not malicious. Policy.

I've worked directly with a number of e-waste recyclers, and I've seen the client's employees doing this on purpose. UNDER ORDERS. When the bean-counters write a unit off for depreciation, they often do so with a discount on its replacement from their equipment vendor. The equipment destined for e-waste recycling is then deliberately damaged, and photo proof kept in the paperwork, to keep their employees from snurching it off the skiff and reselling it, or worse, keeping it at work "as a backup" and it eventually finding its way back to the vendor in the warranty/repair cycle. When that happens, all sorts of shitstorm.

I have seen and handled pallets of delicious test gear and computer equipment deliberately munted like this... then tidily packed on a pallet, meticulously inventoried, and wrapped in Saran film. In some cases we were permitted to resell; in most cases, the recycling contract stated they had to go in the shredder (this was back when China still happily took containerized e-Waste by the boatload) and if we were lucky we could snurch things like leads and modules for resale. Worse, according to one of my contacts, sometimes the e-waste recycler was charged with this task, and required to do said photographic inventory. I never actually saw that happen, tho.

I have no doubt this was the same exact situation. In all honesty, odds are the only reason it wasn't worse is that the person charged with its decommission couldn't bring themselves to do more damage out of conscience or whatever motive.

I have no doubt that my 54645A came from just such a pallet; that knowledge was a major part of my decision to take the gamble.

mnem

[capt bullshot]

Those BNCs are definitely not off the shelf items. 100% Tektronix specific ones. That's why you'll only ever see me buying the low end units with munted connectors as they are COTS parts as per: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-tds210-teardown-and-bnc-replacement/

As for the feckwits, I sold my GTX 1660 for more than I paid for it so yep! 

I'm not so sure with the TDS5xx / 6xx / 7xx series. I won't take mine apart to check, but they might be replaceable more or less standard BNCs fitted into the metal shielding case:



Anyway, that TDS714 might be a good source for a working nuColor screen (in case someone wants to pimp B/W TDS xxx to a color one).
Nevermind, I'd take that TDS714 for free, won't pay money for such a damaged object.

[SilverSolder]

Good grief, people are dumb.

I just watched a used 110V tool transformer sell for more than the retail price. Do these feckwits not know how to use a search engine?
 

People go a bit crazy at auctions.  I recall as a teenager, I went to an auction of abandoned and stolen/recovered bicycles...   I walked by the bicycle shop on the way there to check the prices.  At the auction, people were bidding broken junk up beyond what they could have bought a decent brand new bike for, just up the road...   That was an early lesson that has been reinforced many times in my life!

[mnementh]

...I have ordered via ebay the model S-180 here:   

Yup. I have a smaller one I purchased that is specifically designed for iPwn service, and made to keep all the parts in little magnetized trays. They even stack so you can keep them organized in a drawer. 

mnem
 

[Robert763]

This makes me so angry, just seems so unnecessary:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tektronix-TDS-714L-Four-Channel-Long-Recorder-Colour-DSO/393085246948

That seller, Pro-Avit.london has had a lot of equipment with similar damage. It's obviously deliberate and probably malicious. I've come across similar when a company went bust or was taken over and people laid off. Someone taking the view "if I can't have it, I'll make sure you can't have it either".

I've also bought a beat up looking computer base unit at a bankrupcy auction and on opening it up found it stuffed full of memory modues and co-processors in anti-stactic bags. Someone had stripped all the extra memory out of the othe machines and stashed it. Presumably they were intend to make off with the "broken" one or buy it at auction. I don't know if it was done at the auction house or the original company. This was back when memory was worth a lot.

When the MOD used to have auctions by the stillage and before CCTV you would see similar thingsgoing on. Hiding small valuable parts in oter boxes, splitting matched items between lots etc during viewing.

Yep, that sounds about right to me as well. I see that it was calibrated 1/5/2019 so it is highly likely that it was malicious damage. I also know that they get a lot of their stuff from the BBC and other broadcast companies, and he often has video cameras, lenses and recording equipment as well.

I doubt that the scope could be repaired cheaply either, those BNC's look special to me and the range selectors I'm pretty sure would not be off the shelf standard parts either

Not malicious. Policy.

I've worked directly with a number of e-waste recyclers, and I've seen the client's employees doing this on purpose. UNDER ORDERS. When the bean-counters write a unit off for depreciation, they often do so with a discount on its replacement from their equipment vendor. The equipment destined for e-waste recycling is then deliberately damaged, and photo proof kept in the paperwork, to keep their employees from snurching it off the skiff and reselling it, or worse, keeping it at work "as a backup" and it eventually finding its way back to the vendor in the warranty/repair cycle. When that happens, all sorts of shitstorm.

I have seen and handled pallets of delicious test gear and computer equipment deliberately munted like this... then tidily packed on a pallet, meticulously inventoried, and wrapped in Saran film. In some cases we were permitted to resell; in most cases, the recycling contract stated they had to go in the shredder (this was back when China still happily took containerized e-Waste by the boatload) and if we were lucky we could snurch things like leads and modules for resale. Worse, according to one of my contacts, sometimes the e-waste recycler was charged with this task, and required to do said photographic inventory. I never actually saw that happen, tho.

I have no doubt this was the same exact situation. In all honesty, odds are the only reason it wasn't worse is that the person charged with its decommission couldn't bring themselves to do more damage out of conscience or whatever motive.

I have no doubt that my 54645A came from just such a pallet; that knowledge was a major part of my decision to take the gamble.

mnem

While what you describe does happen, the particular damage on the Pro-Avit items is much too sutble. The "de-value / De-mil people just hit it wath a big hammer. This damage is not immediately obvious and does not actually render the item unreparable.  Any de-value or de-mill should be irreversible. I used to get ex USAF kit from the tender sales at RAF Molesworth. The destruction of jeeps before removal from site reqired them to be cut corner to corner through all major parts or crushed "e.g. by a tracked vehicle" to a height of less than x  (2ft IIRC).

[mnementh]

I think in this case the nature of the damage required to qualify for such decommissioning is probably specified by the equipment vendor; probably refined over years of "this, this and this are just too much assache for management to ensure happens correctly" feedback until they determine some process which can be reliably carried out by a lower-to-middle-level flunkie. Who would know better just what to damage as quickly as possible in their own equipment to maximize cost of repair?

When I say I've seen pallets of "just this kind of damage", I'm talking specifically munted BNCs and smashed knobs, in some cases every BNC and nothing else. That is too specific to be anything but deliberate, under direction mangling of a product.

Remember, things like my 54645A that have a CRT aren't just e-waste; they're hazardous waste. The one thing you don't want is your flunkie smashing the whole thing on premises and getting injured or spreading HazMat around; you want the device made BER with the least time & work, and then delivered as intact as possible to the recycler so that kind of disposal is their problem, not yours.

Corporate is much different from Govt; there grunt-level and even skilled man-hours are often considered semi-infinite resource, as they own you from the moment you enlist, and "By-The-Book" is the order of the day.

Corporate counts the pennies paid even to a GED-level employee against the depreciation value, and will simply pick whichever option yields the best-looking bottom line.

Sometimes, that isn't even the cheapest/best overall, but rather what looks best this quarter and fuck the remaining quarters this year; they're someone else's problem.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

A couple for the Yankees to have a tilt at, HP seems to be a rebadged Yokogawa:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/C173258-HP-4262A-LCR-Meter-w-Option-010/333856862827

Not a rebadge, but a co-design in the era where at least part of Yokogawa was part of HP (I'm not exactly sure of the history of the relationship, but HP seemed to be pulling the strings at the time).

Designed by these two (from the HP Journal Dec 1977):

[Cerebus]

Today problem, two pipes A and B.
A is 100mm long, and weight 48g (weight is uniformly distributed in the entire lenght)
B is filled with some many different materials we do not know, but we know its lenght 76.7mm, his COG is 32mm away from one of its ends and its total weight is 370g.

Now we connect the two pipes together side by side so that the two pipes centers are aligned.

Where I should put my finger to hold the entire new structure and keep it balanced?
Oh wait I know the answer already....
Where is the new COG in the pipes lenght direction of the entire new structure?

BTW: I love going back in my student times and yes I already solved it, it was fun, just I wanted to share. Believe it or not it was for my 3D printer upgrade.
PS: Keep your brain always alive.

Ah, a high school physics questions designed by a cryptographer (see Knapsack Problem). 

[mnementh]

Ummm... am I missing something here? In this case, pipe A makes no difference and can be ignored...?

Now if they were attached end-to-end, that would require some maths. 

Edit: Oh, wait... I see. 2nd part of the question... the balance point overall, which would be the distance from the end of pipe A to balance point of pipe B. Still a trick question, but does involve some arithmetic.

Same with the knapsack problem... decades of packrat of blivet-packing tell me instinctively to discard the green box (well, carry it in my hands until I can get to a coin-sorting machine... ) and work with the remaining ones, which add up to much less than 15kg and must be the correct answer...?

mnem
*math-defective*

[Cerebus]

Well, it seems that bitching and moaning work. After decrying yesterday that I hadn't picked up anything in ages I scored this



HP 66312A Dynamic Measurement Power Supply for £160 (£145 + £15 carriage) this morning. More than I like to pay, I don't think I've ever gone over £100 for an HP supply, but a decent price nevertheless.

I've had my eyes on one of these for quite a while. The principle advantage is high bandwidth/high accuracy current measurement with a 4k sample measurement buffer, so it can save you from using a scope to measure load transients with 600nA or 74\$\mu\$A resolution depending on range (20mA or 2A) although the accuracy (2.5\$\mu\$A and 250\$\mu\$A respectively) is poor compared to the resolution.

Disadvantage, very deep chassis. Awkward on a shelf and perhaps on the bench, basically it was designed to be racked.



Now I just have to sit and bitch and moan about how long it's taking to get to me.

Edited to add: Missed out one nice feature, it can sink up to 30% of its source capability, so it's a 2 quadrant (\$1 \frac{1}{3}\$ ?) supply.

[Specmaster]

Given that it looks like the BNC's and range knobs were removed with a hammer, I'd be concerned about board damage.

I expect those BNC's if not an off-the-shelf item, could accept such with some modification.

A crack in the board they are mounted to is another matter though.

Yeh, I thought the same about possible to use standard ones. If it passes the self test as claimed, I seriously doubt that there is going to be any internal board damage though.

[Specmaster]

Well, it seems that bitching and moaning work. After decrying yesterday that I hadn't picked up anything in ages I scored this



HP 66312A Dynamic Measurement Power Supply for £160 (£145 + £15 carriage) this morning. More than I like to pay, I don't think I've ever gone over £100 for an HP supply, but a decent price nevertheless.

I've had my eyes on one of these for quite a while. The principle advantage is high bandwidth/high accuracy current measurement with a 4k sample measurement buffer, so it can save you from using a scope to measure load transients with 600nA or 74\$\mu\$A resolution depending on range (20mA or 2A) although the accuracy is poor compared to the resolution (2.5\$\mu\$A and 250\$\mu\$A respectively).

Disadvantage, very deep chassis. Awkward on a shelf and perhaps on the bench, basically it was designed to be racked.



Now I just have to sit and bitch and moan about how long it's taking to get to me.

Well maybe our luck is changing in 2021 then eh  My TTi 1906 should be with me Monday, if it is in similar condition to yours I'll be happy 

[Saskia]

Today problem, two pipes A and B.
A is 100mm long, and weight 48g (weight is uniformly distributed in the entire lenght)
B is filled with some many different materials we do not know, but we know its lenght 76.7mm, his COG is 32mm away from one of its ends and its total weight is 370g.

Now we connect the two pipes together side by side so that the two pipes centers are aligned.

Where I should put my finger to hold the entire new structure and keep it balanced?
Oh wait I know the answer already....
Where is the new COG in the pipes lenght direction of the entire new structure?

BTW: I love going back in my student times and yes I already solved it, it was fun, just I wanted to share. Believe it or not it was for my 3D printer upgrade.
PS: Keep your brain always alive.

Ah, a high school physics questions designed by a cryptographer (see Knapsack Problem). 

fairly easy. you attach a few fins, fill the pipes with a suitable motor (I suggest HPBT, NH4CLO4, Al) and find out experimentally. If CP is at least 3 calibers behind the CG then you are fine.

[mnementh]

Oh, if we're doing it empirically, we can employ toools... 

mnem

[Saskia]

now that you mention it ...
still have that Blade SR whatever in my trunk, umm boot, umm, oh, fuck it ...

Anyone interested in a 130cm  and 2 110 cm rotary guillotines ? Running on a 2 HP engine with glass fiber blades ...

[mnementh]

Given that it looks like the BNC's and range knobs were removed with a hammer, I'd be concerned about board damage.

I expect those BNC's if not an off-the-shelf item, could accept such with some modification.

A crack in the board they are mounted to is another matter though.

Yeh, I thought the same about possible to use standard ones. If it passes the self test as claimed, I seriously doubt that there is going to be any internal board damage though.

Yes... like my [hp]; a good opportunity, but not without risk. If you can live with not having the auto-scale, could in principle just straighten the BNCs enough to wiggle a BNC-BNC on there, at least to determine if it is fully functional. If I needed more than my 54645A, I'd def be all up in that.

mnem

[URI]

Damage to Test Equipment:
The packaging-failing morons strike once again. 

I bought a electromechanical Wattmeter the other day. Only bidder, got it for 16,-€ plus shipping.
On paying I wrote a note to the seller that he please should care for good and thick padding to ensure it doesn't get damaged through shipping, e.g. the parcel being thrown into the van..

The seller didn't answer to this note. Most of the sellers do, saying something like: Don't worry, you don't have to encourage me to do so, I always care for secure packaging/padding.
Well this was like a bad omen...

This is the box and the contents how it was delivered to me, rattling included:   


THIS is indeed all packing material to pad the meter.   
Some crushed DIN-A4 paper sheets and no padding below and above the meter!   
I'm so p*'!?d and sad at the same time.

The box is roughly two centimetres higher than the meter itself:


The Wattmeter got severely hit inside the box and the cover of the scale broke into several pieces; The glass covering scale and needle got loose and was pressed on the needle, probably damaging the movement as well:   






I think I'll claim for refund. Grrrr.

[Ice-Tea]

Reminds me of the dingus that returned a Racal 1998 because it was damaged during transport .



Yeah, guess that makes sense now. 

[capt bullshot]

Damage to Test Equipment:
The packaging-failing morons strike once again. 

Ouch, that hurts. As it is broken now anyway, best treatment would be to give the seller a blow on the head with it.
https://montypython.fandom.com/wiki/Take_Your_Pick

[Saskia]

take one of the dog training collars that go up to 400V and do the May thing.

Oh cock ...

[mnementh]

That is a shame. 

My inner tinkerdwagon is already mixing up the epoxy, and shopping for some 800-grit emery film & black epoxy paint. 

mnem
maybe CA would be a better choice with this Bakelite... and epoxy as filler...

[Specmaster]

Ouch, how hard is it to pack something with decent padding around it, I expect they thought it would withstand a direct hit from a nuke. I mean as if the packing is going to cost them if they use their brains, (oh yeh, they don't have any  ). I have been buying and selling on eBay for years now, and I have never had to buy any packing beads or foam etc. as there is always someone who  has loads they want to get of for free, like local shops even and also boxes can got for free from the same sources.

[Zucca]

Oh, if we're doing it empirically, we can employ toools... 

those are cool!