Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[PA0PBZ]

Sorry, but just a dumb Yank here who never learned to read music so have no clue as to what this means. 

Right click -> find image -> Last Post.  Took all of .3 seconds

Well thats really useful, I do a right click and I don't have that option appear on my PC which is running Windozw 10.

I don't either. 

It's a Chrome thingy

[PA0PBZ]

[mnementh]

Sometimes, the important stuff gets lost in the communication medium... 

mnem
 

[factory]

Sorry, but just a dumb Yank here who never learned to read music so have no clue as to what this means. 

Right click -> find image -> Last Post.  Took all of .3 seconds

Well thats really useful, I do a right click and I don't have that option appear on my PC which is running Windozw 10.

I don't either. 

Works fine with Win10 with Firefox, right click the image and select "view image info".



David

[bd139]

Oh and the last two D83 as well 

At least there's no HT on the new scopes. Window shopping Keysight at the moment but not sure I can pull the trigger on 100MHz jobby at that price 

Ok found the issue zapping it with a can of freezer spray. The grid cut off trimmer is knackered.

So now where do I find a 2.2M 1W trimmer... 

[mnementh]

Yeeowwch.

Trial & error with fixed resistors...?

mnem
*nukular*

[AVGresponding]

Some pics of the variac, and some from work, re the continuing preparation for this bank holiday weekend's mains change at City Hall.




Made in India, but really very well, and for sure looks better than any of that cheap Chinesium tat you see in red cages with built in DVMs. Ebay seller is Eastern Transformers & Equipment Ltd, the thing was £50 shipped, and arrived post haste and well packed, via APC.
Unfortunately my insulation tester is at work, but the 289 on nS seems to show a good insulation resistance (0.01-0.07nS).
Tested it but not under load, that'll have to wait a couple of weeks maybe.



Here's a junction box a tad bigger than you usually see:



For context, that's a 500ml bottle of water (about a pint for the Norte Americanos). I will take a pic or two when it's out of the box.



This is the cable it's going to be jointing:



The flash washed the image out I'm afraid. It's (only) a 150mm² 4-core, one of the outgoing cables, not the incomers which are 300mm². Still, it's bigger than you normally want to have to joint...
You can see that it was cut with shears rather than a saw; believe it or not you can get cutters the size of normal pliers that can shear these and bigger armoured cables. They use a ratchet mechanism and take a LOT of squeezes, but it's often more convenient than a hacksaw in confined spaces.


The biggest CSA we've had to get in is this 250mm² earth. For scale my thumb nail is 19mm (3/4") across.




Finally, these two boards are for temporary power (from generators) while we work. I had a few choice words to say about the feckwit/s that fitted them, when I took the covers off. Dumbasses.




Oh, and the injection site on my arm decided it would start to hurt today   

[xrunner]

Some pics of the variac, and some from work, re the continuing preparation for this bank holiday weekend's mains change at City Hall.
...
Made in India, but really very well, and for sure looks better than any of that cheap Chinesium tat you see in red cages with built in DVMs.

Oh variacs! I'll post some pics of my Chinesium variac project. I decided to open it ... 

[mnementh]

Oklay you MacHeadzzz...

Currently trying to figure out how to do a clean install of El Capitan on one of the "extra" drives... I have the DMG file, and I've wiped/formatted as journaled the target drive. Now, if I copy the DMG file to a exFAT USB from my PC, I should be able to launch the Utilities applet from the original boot drive, then direct it to the desired .dmg image and let rip, right?

Right now unfuckerizing a 32GB USB drive after memTEST... jeebus it takes forever to zero out one that big. 

mnem
&drops back & punts*

Nope. Gotta be booted from the DMG to work. I was hoping to avoid the misery of making a Mac bootable USB on my PC.... guess not.

mnem
*back to the suck*

[ch_scr]

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

[AVGresponding]

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

An electrometer of some sort..?

[ch_scr]

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

An electrometer of some sort..?

One might argue it could be connected to one, although it's not made for that specifically.

[tautech]

Oh and the last two D83 as well 

At least there's no HT on the new scopes. Window shopping Keysight at the moment but not sure I can pull the trigger on 100MHz jobby at that price 

Ok found the issue zapping it with a can of freezer spray. The grid cut off trimmer is knackered.

So now where do I find a 2.2M 1W trimmer... 

In the D83 donors you didn't keep ! 

[Robert763]

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

Looks like a semiconductor test fixture for a curve tracer / parameter tet set / SMU

EDIT:
Just manged to sneak in the TE of the page:

[AVGresponding]

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

An electrometer of some sort..?

One might argue it could be connected to one, although it's not made for that specifically.

I have another guess but in the interests of fairness will wait for others to have a turn...

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

Looks like a semiconductor test fixture for a curve tracer / parameter tet set / SMU

Dammit Robert, that's three guesses! And you took my second guess too   

[ch_scr]

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

Looks like a semiconductor test fixture for a curve tracer / parameter tet set / SMU

DING! DING! We have a winner
It's the underbelly of an HP/Yokogawa 16058A test fixture. Second picture is a little bit further along the modification. My unit came with modified/ruined lid, but additional triaxial jacks. Now that all that is removed, it awaits a remade one. Figured out today they used standard "Multi-Contact" 1mm and 2mm plugs.
Edit: Also, I'd like to add:
a) amazing how quickly such riddles are solved around here
b) the build quality is fabulous. Mostly double walled aluminium, to make it sturdy, pretty and easy to service
they truly don't make them like they used to...

[ch_scr]

Oh and the last two D83 as well 

At least there's no HT on the new scopes. Window shopping Keysight at the moment but not sure I can pull the trigger on 100MHz jobby at that price 

Ok found the issue zapping it with a can of freezer spray. The grid cut off trimmer is knackered.

So now where do I find a 2.2M 1W trimmer... 

I believe my ex-TV-repair colleagues mentioned there were tube sets where these liked to break too. Are there still TV repair shops around? If you find one, he'll propably have one in a dusty drawer...

[Robert763]

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

An electrometer of some sort..?

One might argue it could be connected to one, although it's not made for that specifically.

I have another guess but in the interests of fairness will wait for others to have a turn...

Mystery squirrel project, anyone can tell what is on the autopsy bench?

Looks like a semiconductor test fixture for a curve tracer / parameter tet set / SMU

Dammit Robert, that's three guesses! And you took my second guess too   

Only one guess "semiconductor test fixture" the others are examples of what it's used with. The give aways were the triaxial connectors, microswitches for cover interlock, and general lack of electronics.

[tautech]

One for Bean.... Going after some of his nocturnal marsupial cousins this year:   

About a compact lithium battery for this....sick of lugging around 7AH SLA's.   Any tips on what not to get Bean or memn ?   Thinking ~20AH rated  from here:
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20210329233434&origin=y&SearchText=12v+li+battery

That is entirely too small a mass of aluminum for 30W worth of LED. You'll regret it.

     https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32804419844.html

In all honesty, I recommend one of the 12 LED SpaceRay/SkyRay/MantaRay/FukkaChikkenRay flashlights like this one that use 4 18650s.

Search string 12T6 cree xml flashlight should return lots of hits for you to choose from; output will be listed as anything from 8000 Lumen to 30000. What is important is that it is listed as 12 T6 XML LEDs like this one, and that you get the stubby one which uses 4 18650s in parallel. If you get the kit with batteries & charger, just chuck the batteries and replace them with recycled laptop cells; the ones that come with are literally 50-70% empty cells with shit capacity.

But still, overall a great value as long as you get the light delivered for US$25-35. Shop carefully and you'll find a vendor with lots of sales and lots of positive feedback; these things seem to come available and sell out in waves, but the good ones quickly get identified and spread by word of mouth in the CandlePower forums.

Cheers,

mnem
*lit AF*

Thanks but no, hate torch style form factor and need a pistol grip style as it's easier to hold while holding the forend of a rifle.
Just how they measure 30W LED power remains to be seen and I hope it's somewhat optimistic as we don't really need that sort of LED power or the 500m range it offers.

It's a punt and we'll see.........

[THDplusN_bad]

Here's a junction box a tad bigger than you usually see:



For context, that's a 500ml bottle of water (about a pint for the Norte Americanos). I will take a pic or two when it's out of the box.

This is the cable it's going to be jointing:

Blimey! Those conductors surely look impressive. What on earth are you working on - peak currents in the kiloAmps range?! 

Cheers,

THDplusN_bad

[bd139]

Oh and the last two D83 as well 

At least there's no HT on the new scopes. Window shopping Keysight at the moment but not sure I can pull the trigger on 100MHz jobby at that price 

Ok found the issue zapping it with a can of freezer spray. The grid cut off trimmer is knackered.

So now where do I find a 2.2M 1W trimmer... 

In the D83 donors you didn't keep ! 

Yeaaah. 

I decided to actually sit and work the circuit out and the power curve for it and the thing is only dropping max 150V over it so a generic 0.5W 2M2 15mm one will do the job. Got 3 on order now for £3.49 off ebay. Will swap it out and see if the magic smoke comes out

[FransW]

Air Flow Patterns Cisco

[mnementh]

One for Bean.... Going after some of his nocturnal marsupial cousins this year:   

About a compact lithium battery for this....sick of lugging around 7AH SLA's.   Any tips on what not to get Bean or memn ?   Thinking ~20AH rated  from here:
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20210329233434&origin=y&SearchText=12v+li+battery

That is entirely too small a mass of aluminum for 30W worth of LED. You'll regret it.

     https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32804419844.html

In all honesty, I recommend one of the 12 LED SpaceRay/SkyRay/MantaRay/FukkaChikkenRay flashlights like this one that use 4 18650s.

Search string 12T6 cree xml flashlight should return lots of hits for you to choose from; output will be listed as anything from 8000 Lumen to 30000. What is important is that it is listed as 12 T6 XML LEDs like this one, and that you get the stubby one which uses 4 18650s in parallel. If you get the kit with batteries & charger, just chuck the batteries and replace them with recycled laptop cells; the ones that come with are literally 50-70% empty cells with shit capacity.

But still, overall a great value as long as you get the light delivered for US$25-35. Shop carefully and you'll find a vendor with lots of sales and lots of positive feedback; these things seem to come available and sell out in waves, but the good ones quickly get identified and spread by word of mouth in the CandlePower forums.

Cheers,

mnem
*lit AF*

Thanks but no, hate torch style form factor and need a pistol grip style as it's easier to hold while holding the forend of a rifle.
Just how they measure 30W LED power remains to be seen and I hope it's somewhat optimistic as we don't really need that sort of LED power or the 500m range it offers.

It's a punt and we'll see.........

It's most likely one of these and an appropriate CC LED Driver SPMS. They're commodity jellybeans made for commercial lighting; takes very little to adapt them to Flashlight Maniac misuses.

mnem
 

[tautech]

One for Bean.... Going after some of his nocturnal marsupial cousins this year:   

About a compact lithium battery for this....sick of lugging around 7AH SLA's.   Any tips on what not to get Bean or memn ?   Thinking ~20AH rated  from here:
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20210329233434&origin=y&SearchText=12v+li+battery

That is entirely too small a mass of aluminum for 30W worth of LED. You'll regret it.

     https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32804419844.html

In all honesty, I recommend one of the 12 LED SpaceRay/SkyRay/MantaRay/FukkaChikkenRay flashlights like this one that use 4 18650s.

Search string 12T6 cree xml flashlight should return lots of hits for you to choose from; output will be listed as anything from 8000 Lumen to 30000. What is important is that it is listed as 12 T6 XML LEDs like this one, and that you get the stubby one which uses 4 18650s in parallel. If you get the kit with batteries & charger, just chuck the batteries and replace them with recycled laptop cells; the ones that come with are literally 50-70% empty cells with shit capacity.

But still, overall a great value as long as you get the light delivered for US$25-35. Shop carefully and you'll find a vendor with lots of sales and lots of positive feedback; these things seem to come available and sell out in waves, but the good ones quickly get identified and spread by word of mouth in the CandlePower forums.

Cheers,

mnem
*lit AF*

Thanks but no, hate torch style form factor and need a pistol grip style as it's easier to hold while holding the forend of a rifle.
Just how they measure 30W LED power remains to be seen and I hope it's somewhat optimistic as we don't really need that sort of LED power or the 500m range it offers.

It's a punt and we'll see.........

It's most likely one of these and an appropriate CC LED Driver SPMS. They're commodity jellybeans made for commercial lighting; takes very little to adapt them to Flashlight Maniac misuses.

mnem
 

Yes if it's the 30W drawing 750mA that's just what we want as it's a 1/3 of what the 30W incandesant draws.
So 9W of heat is not so bad when a Boeing 747 aux landing light drawing near 30A we once used would melt the vinyl on the tractor seat if you placed it lense down ! 

Getting the focal length right for anything one cobbles together is gunna be a balls ache so nah we'll take a punt on the pistol grip LED spotlight for now.


Currently charging another 12V lithium pack through its BMS from a busted jump start pack I had tucked away...... 
Amazed it seems to have bounced back after sitting idle for some years as it only had a volt in it before getting woken up again after all these years. 

[mansaxel]

It's most likely one of these and an appropriate CC LED Driver SPMS. They're commodity jellybeans made for commercial lighting; takes very little to adapt them to Flashlight Maniac misuses.

mnem
 

"Votage" -- is that some kind of Neo-spelling Wagnerish speak telling us how much Wotan will light up?