Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Exactly that. Despite being an IT bod, this is mine. Note the one entire ethernet port being used which isn’t even plugged into anything at the moment. Everything is on 5 gig WiFi.

Edit: oh and the Cisco 1900 that is lurking under my TV unit unloved and unconfigured because I can’t be arsed.

Fritz!Box 7590 ftw!   

I'm the admin of (takes his fingers to count) seven networks of some friends and relatives of mine and they are simply working. Since they are consumer routers, they are having some limitations but besides that, they are fast and reliable and are doing simply their job.

[Saskia]

Fucking 350mile drive home. Storm w/ gusts up to 75 mph, hail- and thunderstorm. Road closures. 7 fucking hours of my life

[Cerebus]

Fucking 350mile drive home. Storm w/ gusts up to 75 mph, hail- and thunderstorm. Road closures. 7 fucking hours of my life

Thunder. Hail. Now, what kind of a god would you have to piss off to have those sort of things happen to you? 

Here, sit down, have a beer, get your strength back:

[med6753]

nixie counters in the bedroom???

damn......you are a kinky smirf!

Yes, it's that awkward moment on the first "real" date, where she asks whether you are into anything like leather or bondage or whatever and you say you have a soft spot for Nixies in the bedroom (and she then quickly heads to Google with a confused and slightly scared look on her face).

McBryce.

No, being the cop she has an eye for detail. So every time she visits she scans the place and usually within a minute notes the differences. She asks what's that? I answer her. Her response is I have no clue as to what that is but if you're happy with it then that's all that matters. But you can see the look on her face and slight smile that says I'm crazy.       

BTW, none of that stuff in the bedroom is powered. Strictly storage/display.

The $64000 question is do you ever use that stuff in earnest apart from putting it on the torture rack periodically for a burn in test or for additional heating 

Are you in the right thread? I think you're lost. 

[med6753]

Started the re-cap of the Type 321A. This side is almost done. More tomorrow.

[vk6zgo]

Oh, can I play too? My "Lab" is more of a spread out and multi-room affair. And I haven't hit the ceiling yet but I've come close. 

Ohh, my ears & whiskers!!!!

That is one rabbit hole I'll never have the space to go down.
The things I have already are overwhelming enough.

[mnementh]

Pervert! The bedroom is where you keep your stacks of old video game consoles and stereo equipment!!!

mnem
*currently being abused by Win10 Install Media*

[beanflying]

Med might be a little sick but then..... Number of little old ladies owning yappers wanting a dog wash from Don

That will teach me not to trawl 'Business' evilbay and get back to Industrial T&M perverts

[beanflying]

Much safer. Cheap 12v/mains Japanese Nixie Counter .....  eBay auction: #402740089972



Early HP one too eBay auction: #284212129877 another one here too eBay auction: #174460487432

[VK5RC]

My life is complete
(don't get out much HiHi)

[cyclin_al]

   Ugghhh. Looks like the RotoLog is a leaky battery victim.
(SNIP)
mnem
I think I'm going back to bed.

Argghh...

Got everything cleaned up both spic and span; my cheap Chinese LED magnifier was plenty of magnification, and I was very lucky to find no perforated traces.

Then, while picking the part up off the cloth to place it back in the movement, my tweezers go sproing and the battery contact flicks past my ear into oblivion. 

After 3 failed attempts down on hands & knees, I've given up the search.



Fortunately (maybe unfortunately for my future sanity...? ), this watch uses the ubiquitous Miyota 2035 movement... so I've got one (probably a cheap Chinese knockoff of this cheap Japanese movement) coming for $3; I'll rob the battery contact out of it in a month or two. Meantime, I guess I need to seal this thing up in baggies and stash it all somewhere safe-safe... 

mnem
*currently being stalked by a wild Thing #1, who wants me to build PC with him*

Tell Thing #1 that you will help him build a PC once he finds that battery contact 

[mnementh]

That was attempt #4. 



Windoze is Updating...

mnem
*toddles off to watch TV for a few minutes before dwagon-bedtime*

[cyclin_al]

Fucking 350mile drive home. Storm w/ gusts up to 75 mph, hail- and thunderstorm. Road closures. 7 fucking hours of my life

Exhausting, isn't it ....

I just got back from my road trip.  Left immediately after my last work meeting at 16h00 and got back home at 21h27.  Just on time as COVID curfew is 21h30.
Lots of wind gusts to toss the car around, and even a good lightning show on the return.  No hail, just 5 minutes of heavy rain.
Then again, winter tires at 15 deg C did not help any at highway speeds.
5.5 hours of my life well spent.   

Came home with the HP5326B.  Yay!  My first nixie tubes.

SWMBO must not know that I over-spent.
Unplanned, I also came home with a Marconi TF995A/2M signal generator.  Very interesting as it was made by Marconi in England, but the serial number is a CMC number (CMC because they are Canadian Marconi Company but are not legally allowed to use "Marconi").
On top of that, I convinced the seller to add in a HP436A RF power meter, but without the cable or adapter.  I did not have enough money for the other one that was a complete set.  Taking my chances that I can find a good deal on the cable or adapter in the next year or so.

Interesting conversation from the trip.  The seller is a retiring avionics repair technician, so I highly doubt he is a gorilla.  I am guessing his skills must be better than mine.  He has collected a ton of stuff from work and is downsizing.  Lots of test equipment, so I will have to watch for his ads coming up.  He had a garage full of serviceable avionics from mechanical discrete instruments up to 6U avionics electronics boxes.  His hobby is restoring vintage tube radios.  The wordwork is a work of art.  He said he has a whole warehouse of radios to empty out and sell; the rent is too expensive.

EDIT:  Strangely, the seller's place had test equipment in a bedroom, which also had the walls painted a shade of orange that must be quite compatible with med's taste in color ...

NO pictures tonight.  I'm going to bed!

[mansaxel]

Fritz!Box 7590 ftw!   

I'm the admin of (takes his fingers to count) seven networks of some friends and relatives of mine and they are simply working. Since they are consumer routers, they are having some limitations but besides that, they are fast and reliable and are doing simply their job.

The FritzBox together with that Czech router, the Turris Omnia, are rare exceptions to the 'consumer "routers" suck' default.  Beyond that, you're left to whatever clue the Chinese tag-team of for-hire coders decided this 5-week project was worthy before it becomes abandonware on a too-old GPL violation with backdoors the size of a Walmart loading dock.

I'm involved in running network to and at 40 branch offices, a major datacenter and a multi-terabit streaming operation at work. I do not need to be at the mercy of such lusership at home; I'd rather have something that I can fix. And the boat anchors, for starters, have their quirks documented..

[mansaxel]

The $64000 question is do you ever use that stuff in earnest apart from putting it on the torture rack periodically for a burn in test or for additional heating 

Are you in the right thread? I think you're lost. 

I was beginning to wonder the same when you asked why one has to have 8HE of enterprise networking hardware (not counting spares) to run the broadband.

Because we can, that is all. 

Edit: And, it's TE:

Code: [Select]

STROMSCHRANK#test cable-diagnostics tdr interface gi 1/0/17
TDR test started on interface Gi1/0/17
A TDR test can take a few seconds to run on an interface
Use 'show cable-diagnostics tdr' to read the TDR results.
STROMSCHRANK#
STROMSCHRANK#show cable-diagnostics tdr interface gi 1/0/17
TDR test last run on: March 12 07:19:27

Interface Speed Local pair Pair length        Remote pair Pair status
--------- ----- ---------- ------------------ ----------- --------------------
Gi1/0/17  100M  Pair A     21   +/- 0  meters Pair B      Normal             
                Pair B     22   +/- 0  meters Pair A      Normal             
                Pair C     22   +/- 1  meters Pair C      Short               
                Pair D     22   +/- 1  meters Pair D      Short               
STROMSCHRANK#


[beanflying]

Portabilitea. Laser Cutting tomorrow because Lasers and Beer are a bad combination Twisted the soldered BNC off it AGAIN so enclosure time 

[Cubdriver]

Fucking 350mile drive home. Storm w/ gusts up to 75 mph, hail- and thunderstorm. Road closures. 7 fucking hours of my life

Exhausting, isn't it ....

I just got back from my road trip.  Left immediately after my last work meeting at 16h00 and got back home at 21h27.  Just on time as COVID curfew is 21h30.
Lots of wind gusts to toss the car around, and even a good lightning show on the return.  No hail, just 5 minutes of heavy rain.
Then again, winter tires at 15 deg C did not help any at highway speeds.
5.5 hours of my life well spent.   

Came home with the HP5326B.  Yay!  My first nixie tubes.

SWMBO must not know that I over-spent.
Unplanned, I also came home with a Marconi TF995A/2M signal generator.  Very interesting as it was made by Marconi in England, but the serial number is a CMC number (CMC because they are Canadian Marconi Company but are not legally allowed to use "Marconi").
On top of that, I convinced the seller to add in a HP436A RF power meter, but without the cable or adapter.  I did not have enough money for the other one that was a complete set.  Taking my chances that I can find a good deal on the cable or adapter in the next year or so.

Interesting conversation from the trip.  The seller is a retiring avionics repair technician, so I highly doubt he is a gorilla.  I am guessing his skills must be better than mine.  He has collected a ton of stuff from work and is downsizing.  Lots of test equipment, so I will have to watch for his ads coming up.  He had a garage full of serviceable avionics from mechanical discrete instruments up to 6U avionics electronics boxes.  His hobby is restoring vintage tube radios.  The wordwork is a work of art.  He said he has a whole warehouse of radios to empty out and sell; the rent is too expensive.

EDIT:  Strangely, the seller's place had test equipment in a bedroom, which also had the walls painted a shade of orange that must be quite compatible with med's taste in color ...

NO pictures tonight.  I'm going to bed!

Welcome to the world of the orange glow!  You know you'll soon be looking for 'friends' for your new counter, right?  The slope is slippery, but it's a fun slide down to oblivion.   







Like Lay's potato chips, you can't have just one...   

-Pat

[mansaxel]

Welcome to the world of the orange glow!  You know you'll soon be looking for 'friends' for your new counter, right?  The slope is slippery, but it's a fun slide down to oblivion.   

I have a legitimate need for another Nixie counter, one that goes to 10MHz and can display to 0,1Hz at that.  Reason? Two.

1. Work needs to verify GPSDO. We have lots of modern equipment, but... It isn't true until it's on a Nixie!

2. The 13yo is mesmerized (we all know the feeling) by the wandering digits.

My little 50KHz -hp- is good (and bang on! once I repaired it) but  simply not up to the task.

[beanflying]

I did see this one is still lurking on evilbay  Just so happens to have the correct number of Nixies for 0.1 Hz display  eBay auction: #143542015353 Might need Smurf repackaging and suitable bribe for service.

[Cubdriver]

I did see this one is still lurking on evilbay  Just so happens to have the correct number of Nixies for 0.1 Hz display  eBay auction: #143542015353 Might need Smurf repackaging and suitable bribe for service.

And at $400 plus shipping it's going to be there for a while longer methinks...  It's cool looking, but not THAT cool looking.

-Pat

[Ero-Shan]

"Gently used aluminum electrolytic capacitors run on 100% pure Tektronix electrons"

 

https://www.ebay.de/itm/124617620185

When I saw this, the first thing that sprang to my mind was: why doesn't med dispose of his caps this way? He's got way more than that!
No bidders yet. People might not be that dumb.

[med6753]

I did see this one is still lurking on evilbay  Just so happens to have the correct number of Nixies for 0.1 Hz display  eBay auction: #143542015353 Might need Smurf repackaging and suitable bribe for service.

And at $400 plus shipping it's going to be there for a while longer methinks...  It's cool looking, but not THAT cool looking.

-Pat

And shipping across the pond plus my handling...er...bribe fee? You better mortgage the house. 

[med6753]

People might not be that dumb.

Do you want to bet your life on that? 

[beanflying]

Sometimes Style and even needing to kiss Smurf butt might be worth it  I think I first spotted it six months or more ago so might be time for a low ball offer if anyone is keen. $250-300'ish seems about right 

[med6753]

Ya think?