Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[cyclin_al]

I am truly humbled by the assistance offered by members here.  I am currently communicating with two people with an interest in helping me resolve my PC aspirations.

The EEVblog is a good place to be.   



(Yes, even with Bean and all you other enablers......)

I can guess who those offering such assistance are.  My son, SWMBO and SWMBO's mother are all receiving the benefits of PC aspirations and appreciate it.
Me, on the other hand, have a computer in the same vintage as Brumby's.  No rush to upgrade...
--- "Honey, I need this TE so I can fix up my computer to be just as fast as yours"

[vk6zgo]

Trust the Swedes and New Zealanders to be difficult 
You learn something new every day.

I always thought that the dials on New Zealand telephones were more logical with the numbering increasing in the clockwise direction - everyone else in the world seemed to number their dials in reverse.

The NZ telephone system was essentially based on British equipment and used the same dial mechanisms in the phones. As a result the reverse ordering of the telephone dial numbers resulted in our emergency number being 111 rather 999 as in the British system.

The Oz one is 000, go figure!

[VK5RC]

I need a NASA mug😁

This one?   



https://www.ebay.com/itm/143890235644

That is cool, but the seller doesn't send to Aus, I need to do some searching😁

I can play parcel proxy if you want. :-)

Many thanks for the offer.
I pulled my finger out, and found a few different NASA mugs, including that great one that you found, some semi local, so not too much post, or chance for breakage, my wife sighs - 'such a nerd' 😁

[VK5RC]

Trust the Swedes and New Zealanders to be difficult 
You learn something new every day.

I always thought that the dials on New Zealand telephones were more logical with the numbering increasing in the clockwise direction - everyone else in the world seemed to number their dials in reverse.

The NZ telephone system was essentially based on British equipment and used the same dial mechanisms in the phones. As a result the reverse ordering of the telephone dial numbers resulted in our emergency number being 111 rather 999 as in the British system.

The Oz one is 000, go figure!

I thought the logic behind this was, in the old dials of Australia, the zero had 10 pulses, hence less likely to be accidentally dialled.

[Brumby]

I thought the logic behind this was, in the old dials of Australia, the zero had 10 pulses, hence less likely to be accidentally dialled.

That was my understanding, also.

[beanflying]

Non Ham road kit Still need to glue the layers but the test fit look good.

[mansaxel]

I thought the logic behind this was, in the old dials of Australia, the zero had 10 pulses, hence less likely to be accidentally dialled.

That was my understanding, also.

In rotary times, we had 90000 in Sweden for emergency (still works, btw) which is along the same idea, being 10,1,1,1,1 pulses. With EU, we share the 112 emergency number which is quite easy to hand-tap on an answer-only phone... (myself, I don't trust such devices, so if I were to put such a phone somewhere, I'd restrict it in the PABX dialling plan. But let 112 through anyway. )

[srb1954]

Trust the Swedes and New Zealanders to be difficult 
You learn something new every day.

I always thought that the dials on New Zealand telephones were more logical with the numbering increasing in the clockwise direction - everyone else in the world seemed to number their dials in reverse.

The NZ telephone system was essentially based on British equipment and used the same dial mechanisms in the phones. As a result the reverse ordering of the telephone dial numbers resulted in our emergency number being 111 rather 999 as in the British system.

The Oz one is 000, go figure!

The Oz telephone system is completely weird.

I spent a few years working in the Australian telecommunications industry, mainly modifying internationally compliant telephone equipment so it could inter-work with the special requirements of the Australian telephone system.

[med6753]

Random stuff....

Canada? Germany? Any sign of the 3456A C5 adapter board yet? It's been a week. Perhaps I'm asking too much of the various postal services. 

And yes, helping each other on the blog is what we do.  A lot of it takes place behind the scenes unknown to the general audience.

EU/UK....DST starts here next weekend (March 14). When does it start there? 

That burnt up car was towed away last night. Good thing the parking area is gravel/dirt because if it were paved it would have melted it.

Brumby, agreed, I don't like to tempt Murphy which is why I'm so anal about capacitor replacement. 

UPS sez the Mouser order will be delivered Monday. No surprise there. I did get another e-mail from Mouser stating that for the near future orders will take 2 to 5 days to fill. They did not define how long "near future" is which indicates it might be longer than we think. Not good news.   

[tggzzz]

......snip


Left to right: Some more measurement after ca. 2h uptime, The two pictures to the left are showing the complete plot so far. The overshoot can be seen very nicely and it seems it want to settle somewhere around 9.997200V (actually it shows 9.997238V). There are also some spikes downwards, no idea actually where they are coming from. Will observe this further. The two pictures to the right are showing the details of these spikes. There are also some spikes upwards. My guess is: they are caused when the heater of the oven gets switched on. will check this as well.

Very nice! I've used those supplies in the past at work but don't own any. Now considering how minutely small those spikes are does it really matter? I don't think even the most sensitive equipment is going to even notice it.

The spike's value is probably the average over the measurement interval. Hence it might be 0V for 0.01% of the time, or whatever.

A good exercise and clean of the switch contacts and probably the cal trimpots might well help.

[Specmaster]

Random stuff....

Canada? Germany? Any sign of the 3456A C5 adapter board yet? It's been a week. Perhaps I'm asking too much of the various postal services. 

And yes, helping each other on the blog is what we do.  A lot of it takes place behind the scenes unknown to the general audience.

EU/UK....DST starts here next weekend (March 14). When does it start there? 

That burnt up car was towed away last night. Good thing the parking area is gravel/dirt because if it were paved it would have melted it.

Brumby, agreed, I don't like to tempt Murphy which is why I'm so anal about capacitor replacement. 

UPS sez the Mouser order will be delivered Monday. No surprise there. I did get another e-mail from Mouser stating that for the near future orders will take 2 to 5 days to fill. They did not define how long "near future" is which indicates it might be longer than we think. Not good news.   

Don't turn your back on Murphy, he can still get ya even with new caps being fitted, he's always plottings ways to get ya. He is a very resourceful and persistent guy   

[BU508A]

Random stuff....

Canada? Germany? Any sign of the 3456A C5 adapter board yet? It's been a week. Perhaps I'm asking too much of the various postal services. 

And yes, helping each other on the blog is what we do.  A lot of it takes place behind the scenes unknown to the general audience.

EU/UK....DST starts here next weekend (March 14). When does it start there? 

That burnt up car was towed away last night. Good thing the parking area is gravel/dirt because if it were paved it would have melted it.

Brumby, agreed, I don't like to tempt Murphy which is why I'm so anal about capacitor replacement. 

UPS sez the Mouser order will be delivered Monday. No surprise there. I did get another e-mail from Mouser stating that for the near future orders will take 2 to 5 days to fill. They did not define how long "near future" is which indicates it might be longer than we think. Not good news.   

No arrivals here from the States but honestly, I'm expecting it earliest next week. You are not Mouser or FedEx/UPS   

DST is starting here (EU) at the last weekend of March.

[beanflying]

Slightly obscure TEA list of lists and info. Worth a good read or bookmarking in case it hasn't been in the past https://www.davmar.org/elec.html

Reason I found it was this fairly obscure Newport Labs (USA) Frequency Counter not far from me. Bit Crusty but lots of digits  eBay auction: #154358978444

[BU508A]

......snip


Left to right: Some more measurement after ca. 2h uptime, The two pictures to the left are showing the complete plot so far. The overshoot can be seen very nicely and it seems it want to settle somewhere around 9.997200V (actually it shows 9.997238V). There are also some spikes downwards, no idea actually where they are coming from. Will observe this further. The two pictures to the right are showing the details of these spikes. There are also some spikes upwards. My guess is: they are caused when the heater of the oven gets switched on. will check this as well.

Very nice! I've used those supplies in the past at work but don't own any. Now considering how minutely small those spikes are does it really matter? I don't think even the most sensitive equipment is going to even notice it.

The spike's value is probably the average over the measurement interval. Hence it might be 0V for 0.01% of the time, or whatever.

A good exercise and clean of the switch contacts and probably the cal trimpots might well help.

Quick update:
It is running now since yesterday and it drifts continuously upwards.

[bd139]

Probably need to bake out all the moisture as well. Agree with tggzzz on the pots - the big "HP style" ones are notoriously dicky after time and will probably need a squirt of (no residue) switch cleaner and some exercise.

But at the end of the day, none of my meters will even register that drift 

[ch_scr]

[...]
But at the end of the day, none of my meters will even register that drift 

Well, certainly time for a new meter then? 

[Robert763]

Having failed to find any sensibly priced software to drive the SeeGull IBflex scanner / SA I stuck it on ebay last night. Got up this moring it had sold on a wutomatically accepted offer. Going to a commercail outfit in the USA. Even after the free shipping and paypal fees I made 400% profit so the TEA fund is good at the moment. 
I kept the rather nice, but unidentified power-supply / backup / charger unit that has two 14.4V hot swap batteries and time left display.

Edit: Just checked and looks like those Inspired Energy NL2024 batteries are expensive £300 from China. I won't be buying any spares.

[bd139]

[...]
But at the end of the day, none of my meters will even register that drift 

Well, certainly time for a new meter then? 

I’m working on it. eBay is not being helpful enough in that department at the moment 

[beanflying]

[...]
But at the end of the day, none of my meters will even register that drift 

Well, certainly time for a new meter then? 

I’m working on it. eBay is not being helpful enough in that department at the moment 

There you go the seller is even a good bloke too  eBay auction: #143967147933

[bd139]

34401A or bust 

So far bust 

[mansaxel]

Dear TEA-fellownuts,

today (Friday) the Power Desingns Model 2005A showed up at my doorstep.

I am green with envy!

[Ero-Shan]

That is a nice one that is!

Toellner TOE 8735-2
starting bid: 199.- Euro, currently zero bids.



https://www.ebay.com/itm/133680309577

And, as usual: NAWTS.

Oh yes, that beats my older 8735 hands down! Mine has only 0..15 V and the symmetric output is fixed at ±12 V.

Three days to go and still zero bids.
Chances are good ...

Nah. I definitely have enough PSUs in the less-than-30-volts range (11 HP6114A alone ...).

There's another nice auction that might be of interest to german TEA members, though: https://www.ebay.de/itm//383994299744
I'm afraid it'll end up at least twice its current price. 

[Robert763]

34401A or bust 

So far bust 

I've said it before, Stewart of Reading have 34401As from £330 to £390 including VAT. A lot cheaper than the ones on ebay.

[DC1MC]

Finally managed to install https://wiki.partkeepr.org/wiki/Main_Page PartKeepr, the most famous Mannheim inventory software, on my Ubuntu 20.04 machine, works like a charm.
Now filling it up with all the stuff I have is a real    thing.

  Cheers,
  Dc1MC

[bd139]

34401A or bust 

So far bust 

I've said it before, Stewart of Reading have 34401As from £330 to £390 including VAT. A lot cheaper than the ones on ebay.

Not necessarily the best place to buy such an item. They have virtually no warranty and you don’t get to pick and choose. There are good and bad 34401’s and you can’t see what you’re getting. On eBay you can usually get the seller to pull the HW Rev off it and can check the serial against keysight’s service database. That can save you the £150+VAT for the display module replacement. Then there’s the HP/Agilent/Keysight design changes over the series so a later one is probably better now.

Plus I’m going to have to plug £100 on cal straight up.

I’m budgeting £250-280 which is doable if you have the eBay setup I do and are patient