Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

mnem
why do I have this urge to shop for a Bowcaster now...?

[Saskia]

Uncle It, is that you ?

[mnementh]

mnem
*toddles off to order Chinese food*

[mansaxel]

Am I the only one here who's always had a ~50-foot 10-or-12ga extension cord with dryer plug & socket since he was like... 14 years old?

mnem
Everything that's fun needs 240V.

Surely you mean "needs three phases of 400VAC 50Hz" (We used to have 380V, and the UK had 415. Norway still has 220V, and most loads Delta connected. Like offshore and marine stuff. Then EU came and the compromise was 400V. Regardless, anything sold here needs to survive 10% overvoltage, so nominal 220V gear will be good to at least 242V, only the "heat globes" don't survive so long...)

[mnementh]

Sorry... I've had to learn to travel light in my old age. Nothing that can't be hauled in a 30-foot trailer. 

mnem
 

[mansaxel]

The neutral conductor broke off in the room's breaker panel.  The monitors automatically switched over to 240v and were fine but the desktops had power supplies that had a manual line voltage select switch so they obviously stayed on 120v and all of them smoked.

You can do that to very expensive power supplies of networking gear too, but, to paraphrase my comment to mnem above, the fun starts when you approach 400V. Losing the neutral in a 5-conductor 3-phase cable (to a temp breaker panel because you're commissioning a new generation of routers in a very cramped and hot room)  will get you 400 nice volts at places it clearly isn't expected, and "SMPS autoswitching" won't save you, because it only goes to some 300V. We had to trickle the supplies to the vendor one at a time, so they wouldn't suspect anything..

[Cerebus]

I presume you're talking about a GSR or similar class of router. Given the terrifying price tag on that kind of gear it's pretty shabby that they don't provide adequate overvoltage protection on the power supplies. For those not in the know you'll spend several thousand just for a spare one of the PSUs that go into that sort of kit. The prices are sufficiently high that the design engineers don't have to fuss over the extra money that even the most sophisticated, bulletproof OVP scheme would add to the BOM.

[Specmaster]

LOL... we weren't being negative. We were trying to stop you from kicking yourself in the morning for not getting rid of that doorstop when you had the chance.

It's someone else's problem now. Be glad.

mnem
"If you took all the girls I knew when I was single;
And brought 'em all together for one night...
I know they'd never match my sweet imagination;
Everything looks worse in black and white..."          ~ Paul Simon - KodaChrome

The seller seems to be a reasonable guy, turns out he knew that it used to be a company phone and he knew about the MDM business as he said that he thought doing a hard factory reset removed it. He also has one himself, he'd better hope that they don't turn out to be stolen phones then, because that file I think also allows the phone to be remotely disabled to becoming a brick a bit earlier in its life if the original owner wants to nuke it. 

[AVGresponding]

This was in my home town in Italy. I took the picture with my phone



I will miss Italy so much.....

Haven't you ever seen a PHEV before?

[Robert763]

At least they used a socket with a water-proof cover. I think it's a hoax as the car is a diesel

[mnementh]

LOL... we weren't being negative. We were trying to stop you from kicking yourself in the morning for not getting rid of that doorstop when you had the chance.

It's someone else's problem now. Be glad.

mnem
"If you took all the girls I knew when I was single;
And brought 'em all together for one night...
I know they'd never match my sweet imagination;
Everything looks worse in black and white..."          ~ Paul Simon - KodaChrome

The seller seems to be a reasonable guy, turns out he knew that it used to be a company phone and he knew about the MDM business as he said that he thought doing a hard factory reset removed it. He also has one himself, he'd better hope that they don't turn out to be stolen phones then, because that file I think also allows the phone to be remotely disabled to becoming a brick a bit earlier in its life if the original owner wants to nuke it. 

Given the age, not likely. They've probably been sitting in a broom closet for a year or two already... put there as soon as it was common knowledge that MS was abandoning the platform and they became "CrackBerry Uncool".

mnem
 

[Robert763]

So I was striping a few useful / rare componets (20R presets!) off this 80's vintage PCB and noticed it appears to have a virus 

[mnementh]

At least they used a socket with a water-proof cover. I think it's a hoax as the car is a diesel

Mmmmhmmmm... given its age and original market niche, I'd guess it's just aboot right to be a "cost next to nothing beater" someone did a DIY conversion on.

Or, as you say, a hoax... Maybe  to poke fun at everybody in their e-hicles who're so full of themselves they think their farts don't stink....? A diesel mini-micro would be the perfect vehicle for that joke.

mnem
*ducks soggy ol' boots from multiple quadrants*

[bd139]

Made some toroids this evening so I can play with L-match circuits and Smith charts on the NanoVNA. Of course these were measured on the NanoVNA as well. Need to make a component test fixture I can null out easily as these were soldered to an edge launch SMA which was nulled out first. Not ideal but it works to within enough % for this job.

[Specmaster]

At least they used a socket with a water-proof cover. I think it's a hoax as the car is a diesel

You can get diesel hybrids, Land Rover sell one in China and also Volvo C60 have one that they sell here in the UK.

[BU508A]

Made some toroids this evening so I can play with L-match circuits and Smith charts on the NanoVNA. Of course these were measured on the NanoVNA as well. Need to make a component test fixture I can null out easily as these were soldered to an edge launch SMA which was nulled out first. Not ideal but it works to within enough % for this job.

But you haven't snagged the toroids from the torches, have you? 

[bd139]

No definitely not - those are in active service and will be as long as I can keep them that way! 

These are fresh T50-6's off ebay

[Robert763]

At least they used a socket with a water-proof cover. I think it's a hoax as the car is a diesel

You can get diesel hybrids, Land Rover sell one in China and also Volvo C60 have one that they sell here in the UK.

Yes, I know that. The pictured car is a common rail diesel not  diesel/electric hybrid. The "HYBRID" badge is made up from aftermarket stick on letters.

[Specmaster]

At least they used a socket with a water-proof cover. I think it's a hoax as the car is a diesel

You can get diesel hybrids, Land Rover sell one in China and also Volvo C60 have one that they sell here in the UK.

Yes, I know that. The pictured car is a common rail diesel not  diesel/electric hybrid. The "HYBRID" badge is made up from aftermarket stick on letters.

Yep, I know that, but I was just saying that such combinations do exit, ignoring the common rail tech, but diesel hybrids are around, not many partly because of the extra weight they add to the car. Jaguar might be using the system as well as Land Rover next year as well.

[bd139]

At least they used a socket with a water-proof cover. I think it's a hoax as the car is a diesel

You can get diesel hybrids, Land Rover sell one in China and also Volvo C60 have one that they sell here in the UK.

Yes, I know that. The pictured car is a common rail diesel not  diesel/electric hybrid. The "HYBRID" badge is made up from aftermarket stick on letters.

Yep, I know that, but I was just saying that such combinations do exit, ignoring the common rail tech, but diesel hybrids are around, not many partly because of the extra weight they add to the car. Jaguar might be using the system as Land Rover next year as well.

I want a diesel electric car. As long as it sounds like a Deltic

[med6753]

3456A PSU re-cap is complete. It was a real hassle getting that 5 pin 4000uf C5 out but it finally yielded. The adapter went together and installed with no issues. Why it was decided to use four 1200uf in parallel rather than perhaps two 2200uf in parallel or one 4700uf I can't say. I do recommend mounting the adapter spaced above the board as shown to avoid shorts. 



Back in action. No adjustments required. In truth none are provided for the PSU.

[Specmaster]

@bd139 FTFY, fill your boots. Just look at all that pollution though, urgh.

[med6753]

So I was striping a few useful / rare componets (20R presets!) off this 80's vintage PCB and noticed it appears to have a virus 

I've seen that before and don't know what causes it.

[Cubdriver]

@bd139 FTFY, fill your boots. Just look at all that pollution though, urgh.

Alelly's Heavy Hauling - now THERE'S an understatement!

-Pat

[vk6zgo]

Am I the only one here who's always had a ~50-foot 10-or-12ga extension cord with dryer plug & socket since he was like... 14 years old?

mnem
Everything that's fun needs 240V.

Surely you mean "needs three phases of 400VAC 50Hz" (We used to have 380V, and the UK had 415. Norway still has 220V, and most loads Delta connected. Like offshore and marine stuff. Then EU came and the compromise was 400V. Regardless, anything sold here needs to survive 10% overvoltage, so nominal 220V gear will be good to at least 242V, only the "heat globes" don't survive so long...)

Bah! Wimpy!
Back in the day, Western Australia had 440v between phases, 250v phase to neutral.

The "urban myth" held that this strange voltage was because, even earlier, the supply was 240 v, 40Hz.

When the frequency was changed to  50Hz in the mid 1950s, all the distribution transformers became less lossy, this increase in efficiency accounting for the 250v/440v figure.

I don't believe a word of that, but it is a good story. (the BS meter always pins when I hear this tale, so I have never checked it out)