Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[cyclin_al]

And I finally got around to scoping out my new Skagen today. A pleasant surprise; it evidently actually is new/unused, as it still even has the plastic keeper-bit on the stem. Popped it out, set the time, pressed the stem in and now it lives.

Super-comfortable, sanely thin, and not a effing hockey puck on my wrist; it is a proper gentledwagon's wristwatch. I love it already. I think maybe I'll even read the destructions that came with it.

Ya goddit on the wrong arm!  ;DMcBryce.

*raises paw*

Yup, southpaw dwagon; guilty as charged. 

BTW... the destructions included with the watch are generic, covering all the watches they made at the time. And shockingly... this Reno Nevada-based, Denmark-immigrant-designed watch is made in Hong Kong with a Japanese movement. Just like everything people want rather than need.

mnem
*always in my right mind*

Cool. So you have a left handed soldering iron and screwdrivers? 

But a serious question - Which hand do you solder with? My son is left handed, but when I taught him to solder he solders with the right hand.

McBryce.

I'm a lefty too and when I wear a watch (which is never) it is also on my right arm. But same as your left handed son when ever I learned a new skill, such as soldering, it is with my right arm. So the main activities I do left handed are write and eat. But I throw right handed.

Yea, I'm weird and proud of it. 

Most importantly, how do you play hockey?

I am right-handed for everything including soldering with the exception of playing hockey left-handed.
My son on the other hand (leaving this pun as-is), is left-handed for everything with the exception of playing hockey right-handed.  He has not tried soldering yet; he will come of age soon 

[Specmaster]

Anyone looking for a good bench meter might like to look at this, although I'm not so sure of the price, seems a bit high to me.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402776299756?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m43.l1120&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=f7e3af77e15a4afaafc61c318ad4384e&bu=43177254656&ut=RU&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20210404025612&segname=11021&sojTags=ch%3Dch%2Cbu%3Dbu%2Cut%3Dut%2Cosub%3Dosub%2Ccrd%3Dcrd%2Csegname%3Dsegname%2Cchnl%3Dmkcid

[McBryce]

And I finally got around to scoping out my new Skagen today. A pleasant surprise; it evidently actually is new/unused, as it still even has the plastic keeper-bit on the stem. Popped it out, set the time, pressed the stem in and now it lives.

Super-comfortable, sanely thin, and not a effing hockey puck on my wrist; it is a proper gentledwagon's wristwatch. I love it already. I think maybe I'll even read the destructions that came with it.

Ya goddit on the wrong arm!  ;DMcBryce.

*raises paw*

Yup, southpaw dwagon; guilty as charged. 

BTW... the destructions included with the watch are generic, covering all the watches they made at the time. And shockingly... this Reno Nevada-based, Denmark-immigrant-designed watch is made in Hong Kong with a Japanese movement. Just like everything people want rather than need.

mnem
*always in my right mind*

Cool. So you have a left handed soldering iron and screwdrivers? 

But a serious question - Which hand do you solder with? My son is left handed, but when I taught him to solder he solders with the right hand.

McBryce.

I'm a lefty too and when I wear a watch (which is never) it is also on my right arm. But same as your left handed son when ever I learned a new skill, such as soldering, it is with my right arm. So the main activities I do left handed are write and eat. But I throw right handed.

Yea, I'm weird and proud of it. 

Most importantly, how do you play hockey?

I am right-handed for everything including soldering with the exception of playing hockey left-handed.
My son on the other hand (leaving this pun as-is), is left-handed for everything with the exception of playing hockey right-handed.  He has not tried soldering yet; he will come of age soon 

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Hockey (and I assume you mean Ice Hockey) is only played by a tiny minority of the world, so most people don't play "Hockey" with either hand. Field Hockey is probably more popular in most places.

Regarding left/right, I also have the weird mixture that I am ambidextrous, but usually write with my right hand and kick a ball with my left foot.

McBryce.

[med6753]

Most importantly, how do you play hockey?

I am right-handed for everything including soldering with the exception of playing hockey left-handed.
My son on the other hand (leaving this pun as-is), is left-handed for everything with the exception of playing hockey right-handed.  He has not tried soldering yet; he will come of age soon 

Wouldn't know because I can't even ice skate.    But most likely right handed. 

[Cerebus]

Google track your phone where ever you go anyway and that is not always a bad thing as it has been useful many a time when people go missing as the Police have been known to make good use of that service to give an idea as to search for them as long as the device is powered, it can be located. Equally, the Police can and I believe do, use it to track the location of known criminals if the circumstances warrant it anyone they feel like as long as they can find someone of inspector rank or higher to sign off on it.

TFTFY

When the police use a mobile to locate someone they ask the mobile phone company, who actually have a good, legitimate reason to always know where a mobile is to within 1 radio mast, not Google who have no good reason to always know exactly where everyone with an Android phone is.

[mansaxel]

Cool. So you have a left handed soldering iron and screwdrivers? 

But a serious question - Which hand do you solder with? My son is left handed, but when I taught him to solder he solders with the right hand.

McBryce.

Another leftie here;

• I solder with my left hand.
• What little guitar I play, is right-handed.
• I can write legibly with my right hand, but I rarely do.
• I eat right-handedly, like a commissioned officer or an European (with knife and fork), but switch spoons into left hand.
• My watch goes on my right arm, and my wedding band usually hangs from a piece of string around my neck. If I wear it on a finger, it's on my right hand. Because I do not want to wear it on my left.

[med6753]

Custom made power cord for the Type 547 salvaged from an older style extension cord with the "slim" female receptacle. Even that receptacle required trimming of that top tab. But it fits well and tight.




Depending on how I feel I may attempt a power up this coming week. But I have to study the manual first. My initial assumption that the power distribution would be similar to the Type 535A is totally incorrect. So I have to determine what test points are available to perform some resistance checks. And then monitor the all important -150V reference during power up. If that doesn't work nothing will work.       

[mansaxel]

This past week we had a cold snap but forecast is finally and permanently warming up starting today. Our landscape is starting to look similar to yours. A touch of green and trees budding.

I've just swapped into summer paws on the car. And did something I usually leave for later, cleaned the studded M&S wheels before stuffing them on the shelf. This meant that I had to start with cleaning the summer wheels, before I could even fit them. Benefit of this is that I had cleaning gear out and could rinse the wheel wells out real good. Also washed the car. I now have a set of muscles I've not felt for a long time.

TE connection: Had to break out the MetraHit. As I was bolting the wheels on using my fine Lidl air ratchet (loosen bolts with the impact, fit them with the much weaker air ratchet (it goes to 65Nm), finishing by hand with the torque wrench) it went slower and slower, yet the compressor did not kick in.  I realised that there was a smell of hot winding, and that the motor protector had tripped. Resetting the breaker didn't work. Opened the pressure switch on the compressor, and found that one phase was missing. Traced it to a partially pulled three-phase plug...
Fitting motor protectors on all my three-phase outlets for machines WAS a good idea.

[mnementh]

Happy Easter Dwagon!   


And Happy Easter rest of you. May the Easter bunny bring you lots of TE. 

Easter Sunday Morning... wife made and served me coffee, eggs and too much bacon, son made me a onion & herb bagel. And I have a gift bag full of candy diabetic coma on the table I'm still a little afraid to look inside of...

mnem

        Life is good...

[xrunner]

E3611A cleanup teaser. Not done yet though ...

[Vince]

The new recruit is a leftie too !

I do everything left, except wrist watch on the right arm but that's normal for a leftie.
I gave up on wrist watches 25 years ago anyway, at the end of highschool. They just get in the way. Useless too. If they were indispensable then in 25 years I guess I would have suffered from it by now... but I never did.

The only thing I do with the right hand is operate my scopes... because yes, they clearly were designed by righties : the control panel is always on the RIGHT side of the CRT ! How stupid is that... so using my left hand is cumbersome at best, and at any rate useless since my arm would obfuscate the screen so I would not see what I am doing as I am turning knobs ! Pfff.... bloody righties...

Luckily the old tube Tek scopes have the CRT at the top !    But still... there are some controls on the right side of the CRT anyway...

[Vince]

Custom made power cord for the Type 547 salvaged from an older style extension cord with the "slim" female receptacle. Even that receptacle required trimming of that top tab. But it fits well and tight.

TEA content is back, life is good 
Did just that the other day. 99% of these scopes do not come with their american power cable.... ouf ot nearly 20 scopes, only one came with a cable... had the "square" looking plug you show, but most of my scopes have a round socket. At first I thought bugger, I need another type of cable, grr...  but out of the blue, I though hey, the 3 pins look like the same shape and layout, let's try to shove the sqaure plug inot that round hole... OH ! Fits just fine ! Not loose not tight, just fine !

Who said you can not shove a square peg into a round hole !!! 

But it's a pain to be so short on cables, so I am thinking of replacing the original socket with a standard IEC socket. One of my scopes has already been converted this way by its previous owner.

Depending on how I feel I may attempt a power up this coming week. But I have to study the manual first. My initial assumption that the power distribution would be similar to the Type 535A is totally incorrect. So I have to determine what test points are available to perform some resistance checks. And then monitor the all important -150V reference during power up. If that doesn't work nothing will work.     

I used to have good luck powering up these scope straight out of the box, but when I got a type 549 a year ago, I was greeted with an entertaining though brief mixture of loud bangs, pops, flashes of light, blue sparks, smoke, in a beautiful choreography. I don't know if the scope survived, probably not. Does not power up anymore at the least.

Looks like my luck has gone away, so now I think I will take precautions when I get round to working / restoring my collection of these scopes... at the very least check for shorts like you mention, but I am now paranoid so I think I will also hunt for used beefy variac to hook them to ! A big one for sure... IIRC a main frame 500 is around 500 Watts or so, not counting the monster 555 of course, just a  "regular" 500 main frame. So I guess I must aim at a 750VA variac or something, to be on the safe side.
I do have a dim bulb tester but would need to put several 100Watts bulbs in parallel to cope with Tek scope... not very practical, and you can't buy these bulbs anymore any way... maybe replace the bulb with a powerful halogen bulb. Still available for sale, available in high wattage, and much more compact than  light bulb. Still, a variac would be good to bring the voltage up slowly as desired, to get more control. Dim bulb tester is more of an on/off safety. Saves your bacon but gives you no fine control.

Anyway, looking forward to some interesting content with your 547, have fun and keep us posted ! 

[Vince]

E3611A cleanup teaser. Not done yet though ...

Nice pic, looks cleaner for sure, brand new. Looks like you trained your camera well, it knows its stuff now : it automagically focused the picture on the trouble maker : that yellow dipped tantalum cap ! Good camera, good camera ! 

[mnementh]

And I finally got around to scoping out my new Skagen today. A pleasant surprise; it evidently actually is new/unused, as it still even has the plastic keeper-bit on the stem. Popped it out, set the time, pressed the stem in and now it lives.

Super-comfortable, sanely thin, and not a effing hockey puck on my wrist; it is a proper gentledwagon's wristwatch. I love it already. I think maybe I'll even read the destructions that came with it.

Ya goddit on the wrong arm!  ;DMcBryce.

*raises paw*

Yup, southpaw dwagon; guilty as charged. 

BTW... the destructions included with the watch are generic, covering all the watches they made at the time. And shockingly... this Reno Nevada-based, Denmark-immigrant-designed watch is made in Hong Kong with a Japanese movement. Just like everything people want rather than need.

mnem
*always in my right mind*

Cool. So you have a left handed soldering iron and screwdrivers? 

But a serious question - Which hand do you solder with? My son is left handed, but when I taught him to solder he solders with the right hand.

McBryce.

I'm a lefty too and when I wear a watch (which is never) it is also on my right arm. But same as your left handed son when ever I learned a new skill, such as soldering, it is with my right arm. So the main activities I do left handed are write and eat. But I throw right handed. Yea, I'm weird and proud of it. 

Soldering requires deft manipulation with both hands; which hand I hold the iron in depends entirely upon which is the best angle of attack at the moment. Same is true for me when I'm twirling wrenches on a car. Makes no difference, aside from the fact I am a bit stronger with my left.

Both activities are such that very often, the only angle of attack available on the specific thing you're working on makes greater strength in one arm or the other immaterial. Deftness is something that comes with just doing what needs to be done. I consider myself to be a mechanic in the old sense of the word... one who tends and fixes machines. Whatever kind of machine they are.



On a related note... I also usually wear my watch palmside; I learned it from my mother, who was a nurse. She told me they wear it that way because it is easier to take a pulse, and because it is less likely to become a grabbing point for agitated patients.

That has been reinforced by a lifetime of mechanicking; I literally don't feel comfortable wearing my watch any other way. I only wear it topside when I'm going out somewhere I need to get dressed up. 

mnem

[mnementh]

... there is Apple, who do indeed say "Here's a new shiny...", but continue "...setup up with your restored settings from iCloud with all your photos, messages, etc.". Don't forget that much of the price of an Apple device is the infrastructure to support the 'free' 5Gb of cloud storage that they maintain indefinitely for you - which you can whack up to 50Gb for a very reasonable £0.79 a month (two pints of beer a year) or 250 Gb for £2.49 a month (a coffee a month).

"Please tell me you can fix this...!" (you know, in that squeaky, terrified voice ) means "I haven't done a backup in like... ever!!!"

Missed my point entirely - but I suppose I left the backup process as an obvious escape path.

However, in the light of this:

Sorry, but the last 10 to 15 pages of this thread have been IMHO a waste of time. BUT....it does make it easy to catch up because I skip 90% of it.

and the obvious stubbornness (and, I admit, this is on both sides), I shall avoid further comment on this subject, wherever possible.

No, I do get your point. But I see it as another aspect of wanting Apple to not be Apple, but more like Windows & LINUX. You refuse to have your stuff on the cloud; however, in order to be able to offer the kind of "We'll handle it all for you!" concierge service Apple offers its customers, it has to be on the cloud. Otherwise, you'd have to grant them admin privileges on your local machine. They tried that back in the day, and everybody (like you ) had a shit-fit conniption.

Bottom line is if you want full, direct control of your stuff, you have to take responsibility for it. including backups.

Otherwise you have to trust the people you pay to take care of it for you. This service ecology is what Apple offers; and there is some benefit there. The way they do it, the odds of any nebby person looking at your personal shit are pretty slim, as everything is automated. "Never touched by human hands". Machine-monkey hands in a cleansuit, maybe. But NOT human hands. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Definitely worked out better than doing spreadsheets. 

You can see your neighbors; they're too fucking close. 

mnem
current mood: dickwise

[mnementh]

Or you could just admit to yourself that privacy in the digital age is a fucking unicorn <snip>

mnem

Thats the attitude I take with regard to my Alexa devices, but I do recall that drew a certain amount of criticism and people saying that they wouldn't have a bleeding spy like that in their house.
Google track your phone where ever you go anyway and that is not always a bad thing as it has been useful many a time when people go missing as the Police have been known to make good use of that service to give an idea as to search for them as long as the device is powered, it can be located. Equally, the Police can and I believe do, use it to track the location of known criminals if the circumstances warrant it.

As to back-ups of phones and tablets, there are always going to be situations where even if you sufficient free space on the cloud account, that the back-up cannot be carried out. Phones and tablets these days are not just phones and tablets, they are also the electronic equivalent of a Swiss army knife, especially as we had a discussion here only a few days ago about how good cameras are these days on mobile phones and for some situations almost as good as a DSLR and for that reason alone, a phone camera will still work very well, even when there is zero service available on the phone network. Another reason certain makers are wrong to give people the impression that in the event of a mishap that they can diddley squat about recovering their photos, sayings its impossible, buy another shiny and keep it backed up.

I also don't really consider them to be an aspirational flagship product at all, just another player in the market, my own phone is Huawei P smart 2019 which is every bit as stylish as a top iPhone, is as slim, rounded sides and corners, sealed case, 6" screen, resolution of 2340 * 1080 (iPhone 11 1792 * 828) and a excellent camera with professional mode, but only cost a fraction of SWMBO's iPhone 11. There is zero need to pay their prices for top flight performance, quality and feature set, your paying loads for their flashy logo, their high profile advertising and their genius bar, which is not something that I suspect many of us would be likely to make use of. Don't get me wrong I'm well aware that there are a lot of people out there would and do. Many of SWMBO's family for instance are not very big and reading an instruction book and would bring their iPhones and iPads to my sons or take a 20 mile ride to the nearest Apple Store and their Genius Bar for assistance in sorting things out 

No, sorry... as far as actual quality of manufacture, iPwns are unsurpassed. Maybe you don't see, it, but I do. Tolerances on everything are an order of magnitude tighter than the cheap shit you and I buy.

Now comes the question of whether it needs to be that tight... and the answer is yes, for their market. It all adds up to a certain look and touch to a device, which anybody who isn't kidding themselves can see and feel. That and the concierge-level customer service they offer are their stock in trade.

Expecting them to offer one or the other is the fallacy I'm seeing repeated here over the entire course of this discussion. That boils down to hating them for being Apple, and for providing the service their customers want.

Much better to do as I do; admit to yourself that you are not a Apple customer. Then you can take the assache required to bend their product to your will as part of your usual daily dose of shit. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Most importantly, how do you play hockey?

I am right-handed for everything including soldering with the exception of playing hockey left-handed.   My son on the other hand (leaving this pun as-is), is left-handed for everything with the exception of playing hockey right-handed.  He has not tried soldering yet; he will come of age soon 

           Just like this, ehhh..!?! 

mnem
Fuck skates; I have claws...

[bd139]

Definitely worked out better than doing spreadsheets. 

You can see your neighbors; they're too fucking close. 

mnem
current mood: dickwise

If I give them a good shove they won’t be though 

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Now comes the question of whether it needs to be that tight... and the answer is yes, for their market. It all adds up to a certain look and touch to a device, which anybody who isn't kidding themselves can see and feel. That and the concierge-level customer service they offer are their stock in trade.
[...]

Apple is the Mercedes of the computer / phone market.   The big difference with the phone market is that even a $1,000 phone is cheap enough that anyone who wants a Mercedes, can have one (with the right "Easy Monthly Payments" plan).   This is not true in the car market...  here, far more consumers are constrained by disposable income, so they end up with a "lesser" car.

[Cerebus]

Definitely worked out better than doing spreadsheets. 

You can see your neighbors; they're too fucking close. 

mnem
current mood: dickwise

No, 299 yards is too close, 300-900 yards is in range. 

[mansaxel]

Bottom line is if you want full, direct control of your stuff, you have to take responsibility for it. including backups.

I've considered this over the years, and since I want freedom of movement, the only -- perhaps paradoxical -- solution is to burden oneself with IT operations. Done the way I want them.

(BD will disagree)

[McBryce]

Definitely worked out better than doing spreadsheets. 

You can see your neighbors; they're too fucking close. 

mnem
current mood: dickwise

I suppose Canadians aren't used being able to see their neighbours, even if they and their neighbours are standing on the roof of their houses.

McBryce.

P.s. AND STOP MAKING ME WANT TO BUY A CASIO EDIFICE!!

[bd139]

Bottom line is if you want full, direct control of your stuff, you have to take responsibility for it. including backups.

I've considered this over the years, and since I want freedom of movement, the only -- perhaps paradoxical -- solution is to burden oneself with IT operations. Done the way I want them.

(BD will disagree)

Yep. I did that for years. Custom postfix, domain, supermicro colo box down at telehouse, etc. The pay is terrible for doing that. I worked it out at around a loss of £30/hr. so I pay someone else and only lose £20/month approx instead.

Still have freedom of movement. My motto is “always have an exit plan”

[SilverSolder]

Bottom line is if you want full, direct control of your stuff, you have to take responsibility for it. including backups.

I've considered this over the years, and since I want freedom of movement, the only -- perhaps paradoxical -- solution is to burden oneself with IT operations. Done the way I want them.

(BD will disagree)

Yep. I did that for years. Custom postfix, domain, supermicro colo box down at telehouse, etc. The pay is terrible for doing that. I worked it out at around a loss of £30/hr. so I pay someone else and only lose £20/month approx instead.

Still have freedom of movement. My motto is “always have an exit plan”

I wonder if there is a happy medium somewhere here...  e.g. throwing big files around seems best done locally, whereas keeping a folder full of frequently used stuff synced between a significant number of devices and platforms is something that can be outsourced to Apple, Microsoft, Dropbox, et al?