Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Saskia]

maybe Neomys would be interested in it ?

[mnementh]

Yeah, we have the same stupid pricing over here, like 125.9p a litre, not to sure about the CC charge as I pay with a debit card or cash. Personally, I would have thought that they would welcome CC transactions as the money is transferred electronically to their account and is therefore far more secure than cash as it removes the chances of it being stolen by opportunist thieves cleaning the  till out, or something else like a fire for instance. 

I always pay with a debit card too. But as soon as you indicate payment method of credit/debit the price on the pump automatically jumps 5 cents higher. So as far as I'm concerned it's a legal scam. The stations that do have this policy must post clearly the "cash" price and the "debit/credit" price. So at least you know ahead of time that you will be charged more if you don't pay cash.

For aboot a year or two when I was a kid with my first car... the law was that DEBIT had to be charged the same as cash. Didn't take long for big oil to buy laws that suited them better. The BS aboot it costing more due to CC fees is and always has been a fucking lie. Those fees cost considerably less than paying for 2 or 3 extras cashiers to handle cash payments, and everybody should know that by now. 

mnem

[BU508A]

I stare right back at him... "I pee a lot. In fact... I'm peeing right now..." * satisfied sigh*

Scene from the movie "My name is nobody" with Henry Fonda and Terence Hill:

[med6753]

As promised. The Type 547 clean up.

The covers cleaned up very well. One minor dent and several war wounds in the paint. Not enough to justify painting therefore will remain as is. The handles are high quality plastic rather than older 500 series which used leather which fell apart.



The rear foam filter disintegrated. No big deal. I can make one. I also need to make up a power cord. You can still buy female receptacles to fit that old style male bulkhead mount.

 

Time Base A circuitry. No dust. Very clean. Nothing needed here.



HV cover removed. First glance looks good. 



Forward of the HV circuit. Yes, that says the CRT was replaced in September 1977. I'm hopeful it was done by a Tek Field Office and not some Gorilla Hack. From what I've check so far it was done properly. 



The money shot. Front cleaned up nice. I don't know what that crap is around the Astig Control. Nothing there when viewed live. Camera picking up shading from somewhere.  More tear down pictures later.

[BU508A]

Nice looking scope in the insides. Good catch! 

Time Base A circuitry. No dust. Very clean. Nothing needed here.

These white square thingies, what are they? Capacitors?

[Cubdriver]

Since the subject of fuel prices came up I got a few rants about gas stations on this side of the pond.

First, the stupid tradition of charging nine-tenths of cent additional per gallon. I would love to hand a clerk nine-tenths of a penny. I think this stupidity started in the 1920's where gas stations got so cutthroat on competition that some advertised that their gas price was something like three-tenths of a cent less than the guy down the street. I think it's time to end the madness. Go to even penny pricing.   



2nd, many stations charge 5 cents extra if you use your debit/credit card. They claim it makes up for the charge back from the CC companies. I call  In many states the practice is illegal. NYS has not gotten the memo and almost all gas stations do it.

Oh and....in New Jersey it is ILLEGAL to pump your own fuel. An attendant has to do it for you. And these guys are not the particularly fleet on their feet and many barely speak English.        

The .gov here in Connecticut started allowing that different cash vs CC pricing here about ten years or so ago, purportedly to permit the stations to not lose out on the processing charges they get whacked for by the CC companies.  Rather than calling it a surcharge for using a CC, instead it's passed off as a 'cash discount'.  Because I hate people in general and absolutely despise being stuck in line waiting to pay behind the guy buying fifteen lottery tickets each with some particular number sequence for his b-day, his spouse's b-day, the date he first got laid in HS, something specific to that day that involves a calculation incorporating the phase of the moon, etc. etc., I love the 'use the CC at the pump' option.  The 'cash discount' is optional here, and I've found many stations DON'T charge it (seems to be more a city thing - see it more there than in the smaller town stations.  I'll pay it in a pinch if I find myself on fumes, but otherwise do my best to avoid places that implement it.

I still remember back in the early 80s when self serve stations were a novelty and pretty much every service station pumped your gas.  Now full service places are like hen's teeth.  It sometimes sucks in the winter, but I rather prefer pumping it myself, and it feels really strange one the rare occasions I need to gas up in NJ.

-Pat

[med6753]

Nice looking scope in the insides. Good catch! 

Time Base A circuitry. No dust. Very clean. Nothing needed here.

These white square thingies, what are they? Capacitors?

Nope, high wattage resistors.

[Cubdriver]

Mike, my 575 has resistors in that white rectangular package, so my vote is Rs.

-Pat

<Edit to add - I'm reading this on a tablet, and missed that the resistor question wasn't asked by MED at first.  Thought it was odd that he wouldn't know already what they were.  D'oh!!>

[mnementh]

Since the subject of fuel prices came up I got a few rants about gas stations on this side of the pond.

First, the stupid tradition of charging nine-tenths of cent additional per gallon. I would love to hand a clerk nine-tenths of a penny. I think this stupidity started in the 1920's where gas stations got so cutthroat on competition that some advertised that their gas price was something like three-tenths of a cent less than the guy down the street. I think it's time to end the madness. Go to even penny pricing.   

    2nd, many stations charge 5 cents extra if you use your debit/credit card. They claim it makes up for the charge back from the CC companies. I call  In many states the practice is illegal. NYS has not gotten the memo and almost all gas stations do it.

Oh and....in New Jersey it is ILLEGAL to pump your own fuel. An attendant has to do it for you. And these guys are not the particularly fleet on their feet and many barely speak English.        

Did you notice the .0 in Zoli's photo?  They do charge a fraction of a cent here in Canada too.  Since prices went over a dollar quite a few years back, it may not show the actual price since many pumps have only 3 digit resolution.  The actual price in that photo may be anywhere between 110.0 and 110.9. The prices I quoted are where I go to buy gas, which is out of province, and not the much higher taxed prices in my locale.

Here, they are forcing out cash by claims of too much gas & run theft. Nowadays, if you pay cash, you have to go into the store, pay cash, pump and then go back for any refund if you pumped less than what you paid. Also, you have to carry both a Visa and a MasterCard.  Some stations accept only one or the other.

Yeah, Cash transaction Pre-Pay has been SOP in the states for easily 30 years. Guess all those 'merican punkass kids are bringing their "it's only bad if you get caught" fuckhead culture up here with them.

mnem
Sorry.

[mnementh]

I stare right back at him... "I pee a lot. In fact... I'm peeing right now..." * satisfied sigh*

Scene from the movie "My name is nobody" with Henry Fonda and Terence Hill:

Great. Now I'll never be able to pee without whistling...

mnem
"They killed Kenny peeing... you bastards!"

[Cubdriver]

Since the subject of fuel prices came up I got a few rants about gas stations on this side of the pond.

First, the stupid tradition of charging nine-tenths of cent additional per gallon. I would love to hand a clerk nine-tenths of a penny. I think this stupidity started in the 1920's where gas stations got so cutthroat on competition that some advertised that their gas price was something like three-tenths of a cent less than the guy down the street. I think it's time to end the madness. Go to even penny pricing.   

    2nd, many stations charge 5 cents extra if you use your debit/credit card. They claim it makes up for the charge back from the CC companies. I call  In many states the practice is illegal. NYS has not gotten the memo and almost all gas stations do it.

Oh and....in New Jersey it is ILLEGAL to pump your own fuel. An attendant has to do it for you. And these guys are not the particularly fleet on their feet and many barely speak English.        

Did you notice the .0 in Zoli's photo?  They do charge a fraction of a cent here in Canada too.  Since prices went over a dollar quite a few years back, it may not show the actual price since many pumps have only 3 digit resolution.  The actual price in that photo may be anywhere between 110.0 and 110.9. The prices I quoted are where I go to buy gas, which is out of province, and not the much higher taxed prices in my locale.

Here, they are forcing out cash by claims of too much gas & run theft. Nowadays, if you pay cash, you have to go into the store, pay cash, pump and then go back for any refund if you pumped less than what you paid. Also, you have to carry both a Visa and a MasterCard.  Some stations accept only one or the other.

Yeah, Cash transaction Pre-Pay has been SOP in the states for easily 30 years. Guess all those 'merican punkass kids are bringing their "it's only bad if you get caught" fuckhead culture up here with them.

mnem
Sorry.

Jesus H. Tap Dancing Christ could you please drop the fucking constant USA bashing?  You've gone, you don't like it, we get it.  We're not the cauldron from which every evil in the world emerged.  I'm sure Canada has plenty of their own home grown miscreants - news flash, they don't exclusively come from the United States.  Give it a fucking rest already.  Your one note song about your home country is really getting old.

-Pat

[mnementh]

Oh, piss off. It is not constant.    I'm not sorry if you don't like the mirror I occasionally put up to the whole concept of "American Exceptionalism". 

I remember when I first heard of the whole idea that people would actually pump gas and drive off without paying... I was a teenager and I was aghast. Theft is theft. 3 decades later, and up here it has just now gotten bad enough to actually be a problem. People have started locking their doors too and not just in the city, which in case you didn't know, is also a recent development up here, even tho it was how I grew up in the country. Locked doors were just not neighborly. 

mnem
 

[Neomys Sapiens]

 

Look good now lets see how the derafting goes  Sometime or another try the glass flipped over cleaned properly as earlier no glue and just a brim on one

Very well, in fact. Only two of the feet had small pieces of raft which had to be persuaded off with a blade.

The dimensional properties however were less successful. I did think they looked a bit small, and indeed they don't really lift the TE sufficiently for a proper air gap between instruments, and have an annoying tendency to fall out of the slots if you don't hold them in place with some tape or something. So I now have 9 low profile HP feet, if anyone wants them...

Found some standard height ones, two different designs, going to print one each to test them, along with a couple of other bits and pieces.



@Neomys, you've made me want to play with my drawer full of neons, now! Turns out my  TTi EX354 has enough with the outputs in series (71VDC) to trigger them, so I'm going to rummage through my caps to find suitably rated ones and have a play.

The offer to pass on up to three Elesta ER-2 (supposedly compatible to Cerberus GR31 - Datasheet enclosed) still stands! It can be very elucidating to do some experiments with such no-more-common components. I had the effect a short time ago regarding the capabilities of relays with multiple windings.

Sorry, I could not enclose the DS as the whole File is too large and protected, so that I could not print 2 pages out of it. File is from a website well known for valve-related topics. What a douchebag.

[Specmaster]

Nice looking scope in the insides. Good catch! 

Time Base A circuitry. No dust. Very clean. Nothing needed here.

These white square thingies, what are they? Capacitors?

White?, shit I do need to get my eyes tested if they are white 

[SilverSolder]

[...]  File is too large and protected, so that I could not print 2 pages out of it. [...]

That is what Alt-PrintScreen is for?   

[JohnnyMalaria]

A 60-year film about the square wave. Ahead of its time, it starts with...a cat (or possibly a dog)



EDIT: It has excellent explanations of why x10 probes do what they do and reflections in improperly terminated transmission lines.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Oh and....in New Jersey it is ILLEGAL to pump your own fuel. An attendant has to do it for you. And these guys are not the particularly fleet on their feet and many barely speak English.        

What the fuck? Are people that stupid. There are no places in the UK where they will pump your fuel 

I've always wondered how this place continues to exist, given they are only slightly cheaper than motorway services

Charming. One can almost make out the resident gas fairie.

[BU508A]

A 60-year film about the square wave. Ahead of its time, it starts with...a cat (or possibly a dog)

"Square" waves, the Italian way (La Linea):



  

[mnementh]

A 60-year film about the square wave. Ahead of its time, it starts with...a cat (or possibly a dog)



EDIT: It has excellent explanations of why x10 probes do what they do and reflections in improperly terminated transmission lines.

I find it quite telling that they start the whole thing off with suspense music like Jaws or summat... if only poor analog knew what evils lie in store at the cold, calculating hands of digital and the square wave... 

mnem
*looks his desk over and sees no less than 27 purely or primarily digital devices...* and probably more, if I actually took time to think aboot it... 

[mansaxel]

The .gov here in Connecticut started allowing that different cash vs CC pricing here about ten years or so ago, purportedly to permit the stations to not lose out on the processing charges they get whacked for by the CC companies. 

<snip>

I still remember back in the early 80s when self serve stations were a novelty and pretty much every service station pumped your gas.  Now full service places are like hen's teeth.

-Pat

In Sweden, CC fees are illegal. If they accept the card (Amex is the least accepted card, but most gas stations take it, including the lowest price unattended stations), it's the same price as cash.

Apart from strange events on vacation in Europe in the 70's I've never experienced attendant pumping. 99 outa 100 times I pay at the pump, using credit card directly. The rest is OTC credit card payment.

My reasoning is that, yes, I'm paying an annual fixed fee for the card, so the only way to minimise the impact of the fee is to flow as much cash as possible through the card. If I'm paying online with it, Amex has this web hook system where they give you a splash screen and let you pay using points, and it basically cancels the fee out over a year.

The downside is that I'm such a good customer that they think I want a Platinum card. No bleeping way I'm paying that much money to get those alleged benefits.

[mnementh]

...The downside is that I'm such a good customer that they think I want a Platinum Plutonium card. No bleeping way I'm paying that much money to get those alleged benefits.

There, FTFY. 

mnem
It's only toxic if you let it any where near your earthly existence... no problem, none at all... 

[Cerebus]

Got to say that the more I use my 8060A the more it becomes my favourite meter. Firstly I needed to measure some high resistances. 3478A tops out at 30M. 8060A has conductance (reciprocal) mode which goes right up to 300M (!). Secondly the reason I’m testing these resistors is I need to knock up an HT probe to cal the HV on this D755. Well that turns out to be quite difficult with the newer auto rangers as the impedance isn’t consistent across all ranges meaning you have to apply a correction for some ranges. 8060A, not so - it’s consistent.

Unfortunately it turns out this collection of HV resistors is absolutely bloody useless for what I needed them for so I’m going to have to order some VR37’s to make up a divider probe  . Might do a proper one this time and pot it.

How about these?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402765552667

I can play parcel proxy ...

Gah too late. I just ordered 25x VR37 10M resistors from RS here.

Just designed this 100:1 probe which is good to 1%:



Need to find a suitable tube to stick it in. Only has to go to just over 2.5KV. This is not an anode tester 

You can console yourself that the VR37s are really nice resistors. I've got a bunch of 10M ones that are nominally 5% that actually measure out at (...grabs 34461A, Kelvin clips...)  9.985M. So that's 0.15% low, not shabby for something that's nominally 5% and rated for 3k5 volts.

[Saskia]

Since the subject of fuel prices came up I got a few rants about gas stations on this side of the pond.

First, the stupid tradition of charging nine-tenths of cent additional per gallon. I would love to hand a clerk nine-tenths of a penny. I think this stupidity started in the 1920's where gas stations got so cutthroat on competition that some advertised that their gas price was something like three-tenths of a cent less than the guy down the street. I think it's time to end the madness. Go to even penny pricing.   

    2nd, many stations charge 5 cents extra if you use your debit/credit card. They claim it makes up for the charge back from the CC companies. I call  In many states the practice is illegal. NYS has not gotten the memo and almost all gas stations do it.

Oh and....in New Jersey it is ILLEGAL to pump your own fuel. An attendant has to do it for you. And these guys are not the particularly fleet on their feet and many barely speak English.        

Did you notice the .0 in Zoli's photo?  They do charge a fraction of a cent here in Canada too.  Since prices went over a dollar quite a few years back, it may not show the actual price since many pumps have only 3 digit resolution.  The actual price in that photo may be anywhere between 110.0 and 110.9. The prices I quoted are where I go to buy gas, which is out of province, and not the much higher taxed prices in my locale.

Here, they are forcing out cash by claims of too much gas & run theft. Nowadays, if you pay cash, you have to go into the store, pay cash, pump and then go back for any refund if you pumped less than what you paid. Also, you have to carry both a Visa and a MasterCard.  Some stations accept only one or the other.

Yeah, Cash transaction Pre-Pay has been SOP in the states for easily 30 years. Guess all those 'merican punkass kids are bringing their "it's only bad if you get caught" fuckhead culture up here with them.

mnem
Sorry.

Jesus H. Tap Dancing Christ could you please drop the fucking constant USA bashing?  You've gone, you don't like it, we get it.  We're not the cauldron from which every evil in the world emerged.  I'm sure Canada has plenty of their own home grown miscreants - news flash, they don't exclusively come from the United States.  Give it a fucking rest already.  Your one note song about your home country is really getting old.

-Pat

I second that. I would like to have had the opportunity to start a new life in the off world colonies. A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.

Honestly, apart from Los Angeles I quite liked it there.

[SilverSolder]

[...]
In Sweden, CC fees are illegal.
[...]

What they really mean is, "CC fees are hidden" and you will pay the CC fees even if you pay cash!

The merchant agreement that the business owner signs with the bank to be able to accept credit cards specifically require the merchant to not give cash discounts, in order to make the CC fees less visible to the consumers.

In the US, this practice has been clamped down on, so today you can actually pay less at a gas station if you pay cash...

[bd139]

Got to say that the more I use my 8060A the more it becomes my favourite meter. Firstly I needed to measure some high resistances. 3478A tops out at 30M. 8060A has conductance (reciprocal) mode which goes right up to 300M (!). Secondly the reason I’m testing these resistors is I need to knock up an HT probe to cal the HV on this D755. Well that turns out to be quite difficult with the newer auto rangers as the impedance isn’t consistent across all ranges meaning you have to apply a correction for some ranges. 8060A, not so - it’s consistent.

Unfortunately it turns out this collection of HV resistors is absolutely bloody useless for what I needed them for so I’m going to have to order some VR37’s to make up a divider probe  . Might do a proper one this time and pot it.

How about these?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402765552667

I can play parcel proxy ...

Gah too late. I just ordered 25x VR37 10M resistors from RS here.

Just designed this 100:1 probe which is good to 1%:



Need to find a suitable tube to stick it in. Only has to go to just over 2.5KV. This is not an anode tester 

You can console yourself that the VR37s are really nice resistors. I've got a bunch of 10M ones that are nominally 5% that actually measure out at (...grabs 34461A, Kelvin clips...)  9.985M. So that's 0.15% low, not shabby for something that's nominally 5% and rated for 3k5 volts.

Yes the ones I bought are 5% but as you say they are very good. The thing I suspect is that as they sell 1% variants as well and their process is good enough to produce 1% or better now. I’ve got a selection here and they are all better than 1%. I think they are laser trimmed.