Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

I even got to do some flight test and got some sim training.  I have stories.

Reminds me of our good friend and neighbour whom was foreman of maintenance watch at Air NZ and did rotational shifts for much of his career. In the dead of night when they were all caught up and all aircraft signed out as airworthy trips to the sim were fav time killers where he reckoned he'd crashed 747's in every major international airport. 

I logged an hour of dual inst. and six takeoffs and landings at SYD in a Qantas B-747 sim.  A good mate was a Qantas captain and got me a slot in the schedule.  I was in town for a meeting and had arrived the morning after the big party at the opera house after Sydney won the 2000 Olympics.  (Such a mess.)  They had the Olympic venues in the sim just like when they gave the Olympic suits sim rides to showcase what it would look like if they were awarded to Sydney.  I even flew the a/c under the Harbour bridge and it knocked off my vertical fin.  Good memories.

Sims are in much greater demand it appears these days (pre Covid) and our daughter captain gets a slot weeks in advance to do her 2x/year checks. She flys the 50 seater Dash 8's.
In Auckland we apparently get quite a few fly in's to use it and I know it was extended and further sims added. Pretty neat place to have a poke around as daughter got us in there once.

Talking of Dash 8's I designed a system for and spent a fair bit of time on this one a few years ago.
https://youtu.be/huJDDGyWDYU

Nice, bit flasher than the Q300 Dash 8's we have in NZ. Looks a bit bigger to, ~70 seater ?

It's a Special Mission aircraft conversion. I can't tell how many seats but it's a lot less than when it was carrying passengers (it's an ex FlyBe airframe)

Exactly that.  In the most recent standard configuration (aka, cattle hauler), the Q400 seats 86.  Factor in the weight and balance of the mission equipment, then you have much less capacity for human cargo.  Also, if that equipment impedes on the normal emergency exits etcetera, then the occupant safety requirements will further limit the headcount.

Oh, so that makes the Q400 even larger than the AC72's we also run over here. AC72 is Air NZ biggest turboprop so for the more popular routes they run the A320's that also do the short international runs to Oz.

[mansaxel]

got that call all the time.  the installation team is on site and the BOM is mostly there but missing the fixed plant adapters.  "we decided to just have the GI's make up cables". 

oh by the way.  can you fax the pin outs for the mil connectors to the team chief?

and you just pray that they have tools.  and pins.  and shells.

a couple of weeks later when nothing works you scrounge some fpa's and fed ex them half way around the planet.

thank god all those antiques have been scraped by now.  (i hope)

Having some controlled equipment experience, though not on that particular unit, but our specific ones, I'd guess that "not using the FPA" would be breach of protocol. Unless you're in the right facility, where TEMPEST is not an issue (inside Faraday box under n metres bedrock, for instance.) I'd never dare to swerve from the BOM there. Unless there was a shooting war going on, et c.

I have a somewhat lighter story on the "site tech gets things fuckerized" -- I was the router guy, supposed to sit on my chair and make things work remotely, but I also was the one with the most actual experience of h/w servicing our backbone routers, so when one of them decided that one of its Clock Scheduler Cards and one of the Switch Matrix Cards were more like turnips than digital multiplex circuits I was the one to find it, diagnose it, and tell the maintenance org what spare parts to request, and for good measure, I went out with them to do the card swap too. That went really well, and we ended up with full redundancy and all.

As I was on-site, I spent some time looking at a piece of transmission equipment only to find that the contractor had completely misunderstood the cabling sheet for a work package that was claimed complete, and that one of my remote config projects depended on. I clearly saw where they'd fucked up and why nothing was working, fixed the issue (thereby making the on-site documentation correct) and immediately saw that the previously missing comms link had started working. That particular project was probably the most important one I'd been involved with, and it was wedged due to a contractor fuckup. 

[BU508A]

No idea which vendor it is but it's a ZTX550. I loaded it up on a power supply first with a bias circuit to set the current to 36mA and Vce at 10v and left it for 10 minutes to warm up. Didn't get particularly warm even and it's in SOA. Not sure why the old one died to be honest. Googling Racal and ZTX550 found a post or two about duff ones in Racal counters so may have been a marginal batch 

I had a look into the datasheet of the ZTX550. It is saying, that this lil' guy can do a P_tot=1W. I got curious and looked for replacement types and found this:
https://www.el-component.com/bipolar-transistors/ztx550
They all have a P_tot=0.625W. Either they are very conservative specified or the Zetex ones are very optimistic. 

[nixiefreqq]

got that call all the time.  the installation team is on site and the BOM is mostly there but missing the fixed plant adapters.  "we decided to just have the GI's make up cables". 

oh by the way.  can you fax the pin outs for the mil connectors to the team chief?

and you just pray that they have tools.  and pins.  and shells.

a couple of weeks later when nothing works you scrounge some fpa's and fed ex them half way around the planet.

thank god all those antiques have been scraped by now.  (i hope)

Having some controlled equipment experience, though not on that particular unit, but our specific ones, I'd guess that "not using the FPA" would be breach of protocol. Unless you're in the right facility, where TEMPEST is not an issue (inside Faraday box under n metres bedrock, for instance.) I'd never dare to swerve from the BOM there. Unless there was a shooting war going on, et c.

I have a somewhat lighter story on the "site tech gets things fuckerized" -- I was the router guy, supposed to sit on my chair and make things work remotely, but I also was the one with the most actual experience of h/w servicing our backbone routers, so when one of them decided that one of its Clock Scheduler Cards and one of the Switch Matrix Cards were more like turnips than digital multiplex circuits I was the one to find it, diagnose it, and tell the maintenance org what spare parts to request, and for good measure, I went out with them to do the card swap too. That went really well, and we ended up with full redundancy and all.

As I was on-site, I spent some time looking at a piece of transmission equipment only to find that the contractor had completely misunderstood the cabling sheet for a work package that was claimed complete, and that one of my remote config projects depended on. I clearly saw where they'd fucked up and why nothing was working, fixed the issue (thereby making the on-site documentation correct) and immediately saw that the previously missing comms link had started working. That particular project was probably the most important one I'd been involved with, and it was wedged due to a contractor fuckup. 

ha! sounds like we had very similar experiences. 

you could get away without using the fpa, but ya' had to be careful to use the correct type cable, and even then we almost always insisted the whole mess be inside a certain kind of cabinet.

most of our installers and on site guys were sharp as hell and you could trust them with just about anything.  but it only took one dumb ass or lazy bastard and you found yourself first on an airplane and then crawling around under the raised floor for a week tracing down the one pin in the wrong hole or the one broken wire  (or occasionally a real ooooops!).  none of this "did you turn it off and on again" that fixes most things these days.

end of rant.

[Brumby]

Right one hour unfucking an iPad and now on to fixing that criminal usage of a BD140 in that Racal.

A BD140! That's practically family to you!

McBryce.

Let’s not talk about my other half. BD139 only from now 

Ah .... I can still remember the first time I was introduced to the BD139 and BD140.  Complementary drivers for some 2N3055 output transistors in the Playmaster 132 amplifier project featured in Electronics Australia in 1971.

Yes, I built it - and it worked!

[tggzzz]

Here's a buttock-clenching "low energy" landing. See if you can guess where the airfield is, then skip through every 30s to see if you got it right

Nope, did not even guess close where the airfield was.  That was a long couple of minutes with the stall warning horn (I assume) going off.

There is no stall warning horn. The nearest is the lack of air noise as you get slow, and that you are using your arm to move the stick rather than your fingertips. Besides, you couldn't rely on such an instrument; I've had all the principal instruments fail in flight, and it is normal to do tuition flights with your instruments covered up. The phrase "flying by the seat of your pants" is literally true

Gliders often fly very close to the stall speed. For many gliders, you go upwards fastest a few knots above stall speed. Now combine that with circling in thermals and that thermals can be unpredictable bubbles, and it isn't difficult to find yourself in a spin. Hence the training for the warning signs plus how to get out of a spin.

The other fun thing in thermals is if they are tight and fast. I've been in one going up at >10kt, banking at 70degrees and pulling 2.5G for several minutes. Plus there was another glider at the same altitude, so to keep separation we looked upwards at the top of his head.

[beanflying]

Here's a buttock-clenching "low energy" landing. See if you can guess where the airfield is, then skip through every 30s to see if you got it right

Nope, did not even guess close where the airfield was.  That was a long couple of minutes with the stall warning horn (I assume) going off.

There is no stall warning horn. The nearest is the lack of air noise as you get slow, and that you are using your arm to move the stick rather than your fingertips. Besides, you couldn't rely on such an instrument; I've had all the principal instruments fail in flight, and it is normal to do tuition flights with your instruments covered up. The phrase "flying by the seat of your pants" is literally true

Gliders often fly very close to the stall speed. For many gliders, you go upwards fastest a few knots above stall speed. Now combine that with circling in thermals and that thermals can be unpredictable bubbles, and it isn't difficult to find yourself in a spin. Hence the training for the warning signs plus how to get out of a spin.

The other fun thing in thermals is if they are tight and fast. I've been in one going up at >10kt, banking at 70degrees and pulling 2.5G for several minutes. Plus there was another glider at the same altitude, so to keep separation we looked upwards at the top of his head.

I have memories of a near Dusk flight in a KA7 that I was on the stick of with the instructor in the back and this beautiful scenery not far from the coast and everything was smooth and quiet and then a bit more quiet and then oh fuuuukkkkkk stalled it  Being the benign Glider it is push forward lose 50 more feet and off we go again and all the instructor did was chuckle 

[mnementh]

   

It is done. Racal sorted. I can live with myself now 

You should've fixed it right & put a BD139 in the other one instead. 

mnem
*agitating-ily*

[beanflying]

Canadians or Refugees this looks very tidy? eBay auction: #303887615917 Several other toys are worth a look from the same seller.

[tautech]

Canadians or Refugees......

So says the convict ! 

[beanflying]

Canadians or Refugees......

So says the convict ! 

Only one of my forbearers was a sort of Convict  As per the records he was offered a free trip to a warmer country and was free on arrival or a few years stay in a Hotel with Bars in Northern Ireland.

[psykok]

Canadians or Refugees this looks very tidy? eBay auction: #303887615917 Several other toys are worth a look from the same seller.

Nice instrument and with original documentation, the price looks correct.
It should not stay too long.

[BU508A]

Canadians or Refugees this looks very tidy? eBay auction: #303887615917 Several other toys are worth a look from the same seller.

Nice instrument and with original documentation, the price looks correct.
It should not stay too long.

And it is coming with the riser card. Those things are rare as hens teeth.

[tautech]

Canadians or Refugees this looks very tidy? eBay auction: #303887615917 Several other toys are worth a look from the same seller.

Nice instrument and with original documentation, the price looks correct.
It should not stay too long.

And it is coming with the riser card. Those things are rare as hens teeth.

It looks like the same as Defpoms one and IIRC he had a bit of trouble fixing his and in the end had to get a riser for the modules but IIRC crafted his own.
I think he's just got a Datron 4700 calibrator as an upgrade.....he mentioned it here a while back.

[bd139]

No idea which vendor it is but it's a ZTX550. I loaded it up on a power supply first with a bias circuit to set the current to 36mA and Vce at 10v and left it for 10 minutes to warm up. Didn't get particularly warm even and it's in SOA. Not sure why the old one died to be honest. Googling Racal and ZTX550 found a post or two about duff ones in Racal counters so may have been a marginal batch 

I had a look into the datasheet of the ZTX550. It is saying, that this lil' guy can do a P_tot=1W. I got curious and looked for replacement types and found this:
https://www.el-component.com/bipolar-transistors/ztx550
They all have a P_tot=0.625W. Either they are very conservative specified or the Zetex ones are very optimistic. 

I think it’s very optimistic. The SOA chart suggests that. As always you have to read the entire data sheet. For example if it’s running 36mA at 10v dropout then that’s 360mW which is ok. This is the measured drop out and current. But if it hits 40mA and 12V the SOA is exceeded at 25oC. Being a linear supply, it’s possible that a hike in the mains voltage or ageing of the device this is powering, a hefty thick film amplifier, causing current increase then it’s going to sit on the border of the SOA and murder it slowly. Not much margin for error and it’s not like you can attach an effective heat sink to an E-line package.

Again not a fan of the Zetex devices. I’ve replaced many over the years. I think their commercial advantage, much as some semiconductor companies, came from how they wrote the datasheets rather than actual real device capability.

[med6753]

Canadians or Refugees this looks very tidy? eBay auction: #303887615917 Several other toys are worth a look from the same seller.

Nice instrument and with original documentation, the price looks correct.
It should not stay too long.

And it is coming with the riser card. Those things are rare as hens teeth.

I'm not biting. Even though it shows 0 bids so far and 1 day left so the potential is there to get it cheap. Except shipping to U.S. is $215. 

And.......no room. 

[beanflying]

I'm not biting. Even though it shows 0 bids so far and 1 day left so the potential is there to get it cheap. Except shipping to U.S. is $215. 

And.......no room. 

Wrong side of the country and you NEED one that does AC with my trawling/enabling 'skills' - it will be found

[beanflying]

It looks like the same as Defpoms one and IIRC he had a bit of trouble fixing his and in the end had to get a riser for the modules but IIRC crafted his own.
I think he's just got a Datron 4700 calibrator as an upgrade.....he mentioned it here a while back.

The specs on the 332B aren't wonderful for 6 1/2 digits but more than capable toward that. Still if anyone more local can get it for near the opening bid it is a bargain.

[vk6zgo]

Canadians or Refugees......

So says the convict ! 

How about the "tea vandals"?

[BU508A]

Canadians or Refugees......

So says the convict ! 

How about the "tea vandals"?

If the tea was Earl Gray I cannot see any vandalism there. 

[med6753]

Canadians or Refugees......

So says the convict ! 

How about the "tea vandals"?

If the tea was Earl Gray I cannot see any vandalism there. 

It all belongs at the bottom of the harbor. 

[bd139]

I’m with you on that. Sitting here drinking my very American black coffee at the moment 

[tautech]

I’m with you on that. Sitting here drinking my very American black coffee at the moment 

Coffee is done for the day and instead it's now single malt and dry.
3 scopes sold today so maybe I've earned it. 

[Zucca]

Which reminds me I have to buy lots of 220VAC European main elektro toys before I leave Europe,
yes I want to install an Unterverteiler in USA... 

See I love Germany... everything is perfectly explained.

Since I could not trust less the USA grid to provide me the right voltage for my expensive equipment (yes I already burned my fingers in the past, no more), I am now hunting some Surge Protective Devices...

This suprised me:

Häufig werden moderne Kombiableiter eingesetzt, in denen Blitzstrom- und Überspannungs-Ableiter bereits integriert sind. Diese kosten ab etwa. 800 Euro

800 Euro for a SPD ... 

what do you use in USA for mains Surge Protective Devices?

[Brumby]

If the tea was Earl Gray I cannot see any vandalism there. 

I have to agree.

For me, it's the classic black teas .... all the way.   


.... but I have nothing against a properly prepared coffee.