Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Hey, stop making fun of the 7260A. It looks a hell of a lot better after painting it from that yucko beige to blue. 

All I can say is... it's a good thing it has you to give it a mother's love.

mnem
...cuz nobody else is gonna. 

[mnementh]

Apple, who some people seem to think just exists for them to detract from, haven't done that. True, they've busted their own original human interface guidelines a few times, but in the period that I've been using a Mac as my daily driver since 2005 they haven't done that "let's move everything for the hell of it" thing once.

Every time there has been a major upgrade almost of OS X/macOS everything has remained in the same place or can be easily and obviously found. In that period, 2005 - now, I've personally gone from OS X 10.4 to macOS 10.15, 12 versions, 11 major upgrades, and no trauma. Whereas in the same period the MS world has gone from XP to Windows 10, through Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, and every time there's been an "upgrade" there have been cries from my fellow workers of "Where's X done?", "Why can't I just Y, like I did in <the last version of Windows>", and from me when I've had to use Windows out of professional necessity.

This. You just get to various things working with the mac which never did on windows properly. Killer features for me:

1. The M1 variety of macs are quite frankly ridiculously fast even though I have the absolute bottom end unit and the UI is so low latency it's weird using it. When you go back to windows unwillingly it's like wading in shite doing simple tasks. Also they run ICE COLD and quite happily chunk through work like top end workstation speeds. I am quite frankly shocked at a first gen CPU product that is this good. It's absolutely batshit insane and was dirt cheap. The whole machine cost less than a Ryzen 5950X and has better transcode performance and about the same single thread perf.
2. Backups. Just plug the backup disk in and it does a backup. No futzing, no third party software. I run two: one onto an external SSD and one onto an external USB stick. The latter is encrypted and carried on my person.
3. iOS integration. It's completely seamless moving back and forth between it and iOS. In fact if I take a screenshot it appears on my iPad and I can annotate it instantly with apple pencil. I use this tens of times a day.
4. Spotlight search. Unlike the fucking shit show that is windows search it actually works. Finances spreadsheet Cmd+space+fina+enter and it's there on the screen within half a second of my lifting the enter key.
5. No cables. Literally power and monitor. That's it!
6. Actual decent apps supplied. Mail, contacts, calendar, reminders, maps, notes, apple music all working not half arsed shitty metro apps which are buggy and abandoned.
7. Compatibility. They changed the CPU architecture and people don't have to care about it. All the Intel stuff just works with barely any performance hit.
8. Power. Uses SFA. 26W flat out. 6W idle.
9. Everything works on temporarily connected networks unlike most things these days.

I actually hate using a windows machine since I got this. It really is a world away from them.

I give it 3 months before you change your mind and hate them again.

mnem
But I'm soooo thirsty... and he's just standing there with that frosty glass of Kool-Aid in his hand...

[bd139]

Not gonna happen.

TBH the old Intel Macs were not particularly great. The Mac mini I had before was basically a coffee warmer  These are completely different machines.

[mnementh]

Until you run into something that the OS/hardware/Jobs' ghost just won't let you do.      Then they'll be the spawn of Satan again. 

mnem
The Great Wheel just keeps turnin'... and he's still standing there with that frosty glass of Kool-Aid in his hand... just smiling...

[SilverSolder]

[..]
In retrospect, probably my biggest ongoing gripe with MS has to be their fucking jihad against simple serial comms. Every time I turn around some update has borked the drivers for stuff I need to configure via serial. 

mnem
 

Serial comms is far too simple and reliable - no expensive chips to sell, no makework for IT departments with configuring encryption certificates, no royalties or license fees to collect, very difficult to sell on a subscription basis,  no role for cloud computing,  etc. etc. -  you can see how the modern computer industry almost has to declare jihad against it!   

[mnementh]

I bought from besttestus before. All went well. Shipping is normally a bit expensive.

You could have a better deal for a 500Mhz probe though. saw a Lecroy pp008 yesterday on ebay, 500Mhz with accessories for 25$. Also to give you an idea, I got 2 x lecroy pp005 (500Mhz) for 39$ each couples of months ago.

I'm guessing you bought it too... closest to anything comparable I'm seeing now is a PP05 for $70 plus painful shipping.

 

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

There is only one answer to this:-

[mnementh]

Oh, Hey-yell NO!

I'm not fallin' fer that one agin'... every time I post any variant of that, I git dogpiled. I dunn' learn't muh lesson.   

mnem
*shudder*

[AVGresponding]

BOLLOCKS

Accidentally (yes really) bought 2 laser DLP projectors. Really expected to get overbid on at least one!   

Oh well, I'll just have to build a few extra death rays.   


CDL have a glut of the things at the moment.

[Robert763]

Talking of software revenue streams.
My IBflex scanner arrived today. It has all the options and a valid hardware licence (according to the config program) but it seems I still need a software licence to get it to do anything useful  I've asked PCTel for more information but it looks like they start around $1000  . I should still be able to flip it for a profit if all else fails.

[fpmacko]

[...]
The flames are bad enough but what is more alarming is the severe vibration.

If I was looking out the window at that engine I would be thinking that it's going to fall off at any moment.

The vibrations are likely why everything fell apart in the first place.  Wonder if there is an "engine vibration monitor" in the cockpit?

Normally yes on larger aircraft. I don't knw for sure on the PW4000 777 though.  They are intended to detect low level vibrations as an early warning. Not needed in this case as vibration and damage was obvious.
The early 737 vibration indicators were unreliable and when a BA crew on a later 737 had an engine issue their perception of this caused them not to use them in determining which engine was faulty. This contributed to a chain of events that resulted in the working engine being shut down and the aircraft crashing at Kegworth.

Most modern PW engines have telemetry.  I would assume that the pilots would have a suite of parameters available.  I also assume that the airline maintenance office and P&W would have near live telemetry to provide guidance to the pilot on what action to take to protect the engine before failure.  Any uncontained fault is going to get hard questions to the designer, manufacturer and maintainer.  As far as I am aware, something like a blade failure is required to be contained according to the regulations.

Essentially all turbine aircraft in Part 121 service (commercial air carrier) will monitor key engine parameters (e.g., fuel flow, RPM, temps, vibe, EPR) and send this info to the airline over the ACARS data link at scheduled intervals and when a key value has exceeded preset limits.  But I can guarantee you that company dispatch is not going to call the flight crew to ask how they can help with their imminent engine failure.  Besides, in this case it probably happened with no warning so no one could have seen it coming.  Compressor blades are binary...they're either attached to the hub and doing their thing or they've left the engine.

[mansaxel]

1. The M1 variety of macs are quite frankly ridiculously fast

This is why I only after some haggling decided to replace my 15" work MBP with a 16". I need the screen estate, since my WFH situation is in a sofa, because I want it to be. And, apparently there also are  a few corner cases where M1 does not work yet.

[med6753]

 

[tggzzz]

I have three of the earlier HP10020 probes. Delightful.

How do they interface to 485 50 ohm input? Buttery smooth? 

They Just Work

[Saskia]

Went to work early in the morning, met Boss, told him about fever on Friday and was told to take the day off. Tried, but had to fix the disaster that our patching crew from india left behind.Spent almost 4 hours to repair the damage done by uncalled for cluster node reboots, etc and was quite aggravated.

[tggzzz]

You really need 500MHz capability? $83 USD is kinda steep plus shipping to Oz.

Currently I have an offer from them at $70USD and I have another few % of ebayplus discount. Anything secondhand seems to be tracking more than that.

I don't NEED the 500Meg Scope so why would I let NEED determine if I buy a Probe 

I do wonder what the performance of the scope will be like up at 500MHz, given the sample rate is 500MS/s...

I have a 4GHz 75kS/s scope. The first boat anchor digitising scope I used in the late 80s was 1GHz, 25MS/s.

Yes but was that an analog scope with digital storage added, or a porpoise built DSO?

I know my TDS420 goes into ET at the drop of a hat (200MHz, 100MS/s).

Tek 1502 is pure analogue without storage, hp54100 is pure digitising.

[Specmaster]

Thats another week then that UPS won't show up.

[tautech]

Just checked my phone weather app and 21C here 8.30am and 26C in Perth 3.30am 

[AVGresponding]

If you keep trolling him like that, med might paint the thread blue!   

[Robert763]

[...]
The flames are bad enough but what is more alarming is the severe vibration.

If I was looking out the window at that engine I would be thinking that it's going to fall off at any moment.

The vibrations are likely why everything fell apart in the first place.  Wonder if there is an "engine vibration monitor" in the cockpit?

Normally yes on larger aircraft. I don't knw for sure on the PW4000 777 though.  They are intended to detect low level vibrations as an early warning. Not needed in this case as vibration and damage was obvious.
The early 737 vibration indicators were unreliable and when a BA crew on a later 737 had an engine issue their perception of this caused them not to use them in determining which engine was faulty. This contributed to a chain of events that resulted in the working engine being shut down and the aircraft crashing at Kegworth.

Most modern PW engines have telemetry.  I would assume that the pilots would have a suite of parameters available.  I also assume that the airline maintenance office and P&W would have near live telemetry to provide guidance to the pilot on what action to take to protect the engine before failure.  Any uncontained fault is going to get hard questions to the designer, manufacturer and maintainer.  As far as I am aware, something like a blade failure is required to be contained according to the regulations.

Essentially all turbine aircraft in Part 121 service (commercial air carrier) will monitor key engine parameters (e.g., fuel flow, RPM, temps, vibe, EPR) and send this info to the airline over the ACARS data link at scheduled intervals and when a key value has exceeded preset limits.  But I can guarantee you that company dispatch is not going to call the flight crew to ask how they can help with their imminent engine failure.  Besides, in this case it probably happened with no warning so no one could have seen it coming.  Compressor blades are binary...they're either attached to the hub and doing their thing or they've left the engine.

Welcome to TEA.
The new big jets mostly work as you describe but a lot depends on who owns the engines. Recording or transmitting engine parameters is not mandatory (except for accident data recording). Some systems record the data and transfer it by short range data link at the gate. Simplist system is a "quick access recorder (QAR) that records to  memory card or similar Smaller. aircraft and airlines may not even have QAR.
You are correct hat it will not hav given any warning in this event. NTSB have confirmed a loss of fan blade. Looking very similr to UA1175 incident a couple of years ago. That one had indications of a crack in the blade but they thought it was a paint defect!
 

[fpmacko]

[...]
The flames are bad enough but what is more alarming is the severe vibration.

If I was looking out the window at that engine I would be thinking that it's going to fall off at any moment.

The vibrations are likely why everything fell apart in the first place.  Wonder if there is an "engine vibration monitor" in the cockpit?

Normally yes on larger aircraft. I don't knw for sure on the PW4000 777 though.  They are intended to detect low level vibrations as an early warning. Not needed in this case as vibration and damage was obvious.
The early 737 vibration indicators were unreliable and when a BA crew on a later 737 had an engine issue their perception of this caused them not to use them in determining which engine was faulty. This contributed to a chain of events that resulted in the working engine being shut down and the aircraft crashing at Kegworth.

Most modern PW engines have telemetry.  I would assume that the pilots would have a suite of parameters available.  I also assume that the airline maintenance office and P&W would have near live telemetry to provide guidance to the pilot on what action to take to protect the engine before failure.  Any uncontained fault is going to get hard questions to the designer, manufacturer and maintainer.  As far as I am aware, something like a blade failure is required to be contained according to the regulations.

Essentially all turbine aircraft in Part 121 service (commercial air carrier) will monitor key engine parameters (e.g., fuel flow, RPM, temps, vibe, EPR) and send this info to the airline over the ACARS data link at scheduled intervals and when a key value has exceeded preset limits.  But I can guarantee you that company dispatch is not going to call the flight crew to ask how they can help with their imminent engine failure.  Besides, in this case it probably happened with no warning so no one could have seen it coming.  Compressor blades are binary...they're either attached to the hub and doing their thing or they've left the engine.

Welcome to TEA.
The new big jets mostly work as you describe but a lot depends on who owns the engines. Recording or transmitting engine parameters is not mandatory (except for accident data recording). Some systems record the data and transfer it by short range data link at the gate. Simplist system is a "quick access recorder (QAR) that records to  memory card or similar Smaller. aircraft and airlines may not even have QAR.
You are correct hat it will not hav given any warning in this event. NTSB have confirmed a loss of fan blade. Looking very similr to UA1175 incident a couple of years ago. That one had indications of a crack in the blade but they thought it was a paint defect!
 

Tnx for the welcome.  I've been lurking for quite a while and I'm proud to admit to being totally addicted to classic TE.  I got excited about this particular thread because I was on the ACARS development team at Arinc in the early years of the service in the 80s.  Coupla more data points...  Yes, a lot of engines are "rented".  The downlink engine data goes to airline ops and the mfr.  But that also applies to owned engines.  Also, it would be a very rare major airline (if any) who wouldn't have ACARS these days.  It's just too important for operating efficiencies.  Yes, many aircraft have a QAR but it's mainly used for the a/c data that can wait until a convenient time to gather it from the recorder.  But ACARS is used for a boatload of purposes in addition to engine data downlink.

[factory]

I have three of the earlier HP10020 probes. Delightful.

How do they interface to 485 50 ohm input? Buttery smooth? 

They Just Work

Trouble is they seem to be unobtainium at a reasonable price these days & often incomplete, can't remember the last time I saw a set in the UK, probably why I never managed to buy one.

[tggzzz]

I have three of the earlier HP10020 probes. Delightful.

How do they interface to 485 50 ohm input? Buttery smooth? 

They Just Work

Trouble is they seem to be unobtainium at a reasonable price these days & often incomplete, can't remember the last time I saw a set in the UK, probably why I never managed to buy one.

All my probes are complete, and one has a set of other tip resistor values, should I ever need them.

I'll sell mine, but not at a reasonable price.

[Robert763]

[...]
The flames are bad enough but what is more alarming is the severe vibration.

If I was looking out the window at that engine I would be thinking that it's going to fall off at any moment.

The vibrations are likely why everything fell apart in the first place.  Wonder if there is an "engine vibration monitor" in the cockpit?

Normally yes on larger aircraft. I don't knw for sure on the PW4000 777 though.  They are intended to detect low level vibrations as an early warning. Not needed in this case as vibration and damage was obvious.
The early 737 vibration indicators were unreliable and when a BA crew on a later 737 had an engine issue their perception of this caused them not to use them in determining which engine was faulty. This contributed to a chain of events that resulted in the working engine being shut down and the aircraft crashing at Kegworth.

Most modern PW engines have telemetry.  I would assume that the pilots would have a suite of parameters available.  I also assume that the airline maintenance office and P&W would have near live telemetry to provide guidance to the pilot on what action to take to protect the engine before failure.  Any uncontained fault is going to get hard questions to the designer, manufacturer and maintainer.  As far as I am aware, something like a blade failure is required to be contained according to the regulations.

Essentially all turbine aircraft in Part 121 service (commercial air carrier) will monitor key engine parameters (e.g., fuel flow, RPM, temps, vibe, EPR) and send this info to the airline over the ACARS data link at scheduled intervals and when a key value has exceeded preset limits.  But I can guarantee you that company dispatch is not going to call the flight crew to ask how they can help with their imminent engine failure.  Besides, in this case it probably happened with no warning so no one could have seen it coming.  Compressor blades are binary...they're either attached to the hub and doing their thing or they've left the engine.

Welcome to TEA.
The new big jets mostly work as you describe but a lot depends on who owns the engines. Recording or transmitting engine parameters is not mandatory (except for accident data recording). Some systems record the data and transfer it by short range data link at the gate. Simplist system is a "quick access recorder (QAR) that records to  memory card or similar Smaller. aircraft and airlines may not even have QAR.
You are correct hat it will not hav given any warning in this event. NTSB have confirmed a loss of fan blade. Looking very similr to UA1175 incident a couple of years ago. That one had indications of a crack in the blade but they thought it was a paint defect!
 

Tnx for the welcome.  I've been lurking for quite a while and I'm proud to admit to being totally addicted to classic TE.  I got excited about this particular thread because I was on the ACARS development team at Arinc in the early years of the service in the 80s.  Coupla more data points...  Yes, a lot of engines are "rented".  The downlink engine data goes to airline ops and the mfr.  But that also applies to owned engines.  Also, it would be a very rare major airline (if any) who wouldn't have ACARS these days.  It's just too important for operating efficiencies.  Yes, many aircraft have a QAR but it's mainly used for the a/c data that can wait until a convenient time to gather it from the recorder.  But ACARS is used for a boatload of purposes in addition to engine data downlink.

Ahh ARINC 618-7 etc. Were you on hardware or protocols?
My TE includes ARINC 407 (synchro) kit, and a couple of ARINC 429 test sets. My day job is aerospace.

[tautech]

I have three of the earlier HP10020 probes. Delightful.

How do they interface to 485 50 ohm input? Buttery smooth? 

They Just Work

Trouble is they seem to be unobtainium at a reasonable price these days & often incomplete, can't remember the last time I saw a set in the UK, probably why I never managed to buy one.

All my probes are complete, and one has a set of other tip resistor values, should I ever need them.

I'll sell mine, but not at a reasonable price.

This I should know  but what is typical tip capacitance of a Z0 probe ?
Are there charts for frequency dependence tip capacitance ?
TIA