Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[nfmax]

Don't the pages just fly by?

-hp- 3575A Gain/Phase Meter. Last calibrated March 2003, not too far out even now. It could do with a bit of TLC - I turned it on for the first time in years for this shot.

[tggzzz]

Can someone lend me an excavator to take care of the "in the ground" thing ?

I've told my daughter I really don't care what happens to me, and that I'd be content if she fed my corpse to her dog.

She says she won't.

[mnementh]

Trawl this thread for a near free RS232 option for your 34401A and some data logging too  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/help-need-keysight-34461a-dmm-data-logging-to-xl/

thx for that!
Don't know, if forum rules allow me to ask here:

Revision is 11-05-02.

I wonder If I need to search for an older manual version or if the Edition 10 User's Guide from 2014 is OK.

Forum rules...? LOL... 

This is the OT thread. We hang out here so we're not driving the real engineers nuts with our #random mode stuff.

Welcome to the nuthouse; pull up a chair... errr, corner of a rug and relax. 

mnem
 

[Cubdriver]

Not seen one of these for a while, hp 5240A frequency meter;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254957334575



David

Yeah, been on the lookout for one of those for quite some time now and put it on my watch list, but $400 seems a bit dear for something 'for parts or not working'.

-Pat

[bd139]

Don't the pages just fly by?

-hp- 3575A Gain/Phase Meter. Last calibrated March 2003, not too far out even now. It could do with a bit of TLC - I turned it on for the first time in years for this shot.

Very nice.

This meme popped into my mind though with what was lurking in the background

[factory]

Not seen one of these for a while, hp 5240A frequency meter;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254957334575



David

Yeah, been on the lookout for one of those for quite some time now and put it on my watch list, but $400 seems a bit dear for something 'for parts or not working'.

-Pat

The one I bought was originally advertised at $400, but I eventually managed to get if for a more reasonable $125 + shipping. Still haven't sorted out the replacement side for it yet.

Davud

[Cerebus]

Isn’t that a good application for C4? 

Tsk, tsk. No. I expected you to know better.   ANFO/Amatol is the explosive of choice for digging holes. 

[mnementh]

Type 547 first power up. No magic smoke but we have issues.

First time power up fan started, pilot light on, tubes have filament but time delay relay never kicked in. I noticed that the OG3 VR tube for the -150V reference was not ionizing. That's not good. I don't have a replacement. Tried re-seating the VR tube and now good. Time delay kicked in but still have major issues.

All I get on the CRT is a fixed dot on the left. Can't move it vertically or horizontally. It does vary intensity as well as focus and astig which I think is a good sign that at least the HV is working. I suspect one of the PSU voltages is missing. When I performed PSU resistance checks everything appeared OK. But that's where I'm going to start troubleshooting since there is no vertical and no sweep.

Oh well.....at least there was no smoke. 

Ah great, interesting stuff going on here !

From what you said, looks like it's a solid scope that will be fixed in no time. The fundamentals are all good, CRT and transformer(s) ,  HV stuff.. the rest is the easy stuff... just needs a few hours to troubleshoot it, but sure enough it can be fixed 

So yep, first thing to do is to check all power rails for accuracy and ripple, as always.

Then right after that... before chasing red herrings... I would simply pull all the tubes (yeah, lots of them I know...), and put come contact cleaner into the sockets, and "exercise" the tubes a bit while re-inserting them. I mean, you have already witnessed that simply re-seating the VR tube was enough to bring a power rail back from the dead... so clearly the sockets/tube pins have at least a tiny bit of oxidization, enough to cause malfunction. There is no reason to believe that all the other tubes would not be in the same condition. So check the power rails quickly, takes a minute, then put some music and re-seat all the tubes with some cleaner.

Then give it another test ride, re-evaluate, report back, and start probing around to troubleshoot it... wish I was there with you to do it myself, love fixing these old things !   

A trick from old man Basche, the guy who got me started in electronics, is to use short cuts of phosphor-bronze guitar strings as a scrubber for tube sockets along with your favored cleaner (De-Ox-It or IPA). As he explained it to me, the wire wrapped around the guitar string is soft metal and round, unlike torch tip cleaners (popular with some guitar amp numb-nuts), so it doesn't damage the coating on the socket contacts. Because they come in many diameters, it is usually possible to find one small enough to scrub without being so tight it scrapes.

mnem
 

[bd139]

Isn’t that a good application for C4? 

Tsk, tsk. No. I expected you to know better.   ANFO/Amatol is the explosive of choice for digging holes.

Good point. I had filed ANFO under "blowing up exchanges"

[mnementh]

On The Bench This Morning:



AiO CPU Cooler Periodic Maintenance...

mnem

Cure for that particular affliction… https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1378

How is that a cure...? Just trading one cleaning assache for another, plus 2x the cost.   

It's not like there was any problems with the cooler doing its job; I did this PM because I wanted to.  I figured I'd share some pics; that part took easily 3x as long as the actual procedure.

mnem
 

[mansaxel]

Isn’t that a good application for C4? 

Tsk, tsk. No. I expected you to know better.   ANFO/Amatol is the explosive of choice for digging holes.

Good point. I had filed ANFO under "blowing up exchanges"

As in phone central offices?

Get it down low, preferably under, or at least nearby, buried, and watch the thing shake to bits.

We in Sweden were the best in the world in burying things under rock and concrete.



We're still good at it, but since Swedish construction companies had built a lot of the bunkers in Iraq, our fortification engineers know exactly how strong they were, and the damage report from the GBU-28 hits on such was enough to reconsider a lot of strategy around hardened shelters. 

A lot of the damage is from intentional "near misses" that simply release a horizontal shock wave into the structure. Very complicated to counter.

[25 CPS]

Damn - you stole that!  Great score!  The HP 3562A was my 'first hit' on the TEA addiction spiral - read about it in the audio forums and decided to snag one - probably paid about $500-ish for it in 2013.



Next came the HP-A (at the time; now HPAK) mailing list which lead to the 'rescue' of a 5245L from the clockmaking nixie ghouls.  (shown here along with the now retired Leader audio generator that was creating the distorted sine wave in the spectrum above - note the flattened negative peaks.)



...and it's been an ever accelerating downhill ride from there, to the dismay of my floor joists and credit card.       

-Pat

I hear you.  Audio work was one of the main reasons why I decided to build my own bench at home and was also behind jumping on that 3562A when I saw it on eBay for just over $100 and I was able to pick it up locally.  It's been a snowball that's kept rolling since then.

The crazy thing is that since I started with the TE collecting, I've done barely anything with the audio stuff.  Have been collecting parts, but that's it.  Some day...

There's now a 547 in my queue, too - got it along with a 561A and a bunch of plug ins in a nice Tek haul from a silent key over the past few weeks.  My concern is the HV transformer as it spent an unknown time period in a not-very-hospitable storage container that seems to have been on the damp side based on the mildew smell of many of the items that came out of there.

-Pat

I have the same concern with the HV transformer as it's a known fail point with the 547. But luckily this one has been in a dry environment. No mildew smell and it wasn't all that dirty/dusty either.

The three scopes I picked up are still in queue here too, including the 547.  They rode around in the car for a few days before getting unloaded in a hurry after the Doug Ford announcement 10 days ago and they've been sitting in the living room where I dropped them just inside the door.  There hasn't been any smell out of them which is promising.

On the 547, are the DCR and L parameters for the transformer windings known?  Also, is it known if the windings short together or if it's winding-to-core that goes short.  I'm just trying to think up some tests I can run on the transformer with an LRC meter, a multimeter, and an insulation tester before putting line voltage on them after I open them up and inspect the insides.  I was going to do that on the weekend but the weekend got away from me...again...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there are three good power transformers between the three 547s that are in queue here.  Hopefully nobody ended up with a dud.

I think the main power transformers are pretty much bullet proof - the Achilles heel of the 547 is the epoxy potted HV transformer.  The explanation is that it absorbs moisture and gets lossy & heats up, to the point of changing the permeability of the ferrite core, loading the oscillator down and killing the HV.  One method I've seen for keeping it operating is to replace the tube rectifiers with solid state (reduces the stress on the transformer as the filament load is thus removed), and directing a small fan on it to help cool the core.  Apparently keeping it just a few degrees cooler does the trick.  I've also found info on rewinding them, but of course with a quick search cannot find it again now - ugh! - but it is out there.  There was also a guy on the Tek list that would occasionally rewind them for people, but I'm not sure if he's still doing it.

My fingers are crossed that yours are in good nick.

-Pat

Ah ok, thanks for that.  Somehow I misinterpreted what I read and thought it was the main transformer that had the problem.  I'll have to read the whole thread on the Tek page.  In the meantime, let me switch over to posting from my phone...

[25 CPS]

I was going to make a joke about how I should’ve said something about these old Tek scopes being hard to find up here sooner but given the circumstances of this find, it would be in poor taste.  Sadly, this one is from a ham radio silent key only a couple of years older than I am who passed away from cancer.



The lady I purchased it from told me that she plugged it in and turned it on and it drew a graph, so it sounds promising.  She asked me to text her and let her know if it’s still working tomorrow so I’ll be making a serious effort to get it in and on the bench tonight so I can start it up in the morning. 

[Saskia]

just got word that that male parent thing of mine bit the dust today.

I see a bloody hell of paperwork coming my way.

no effing inheritance wanted.

I'm sorry to hear that but I think I know how you feel. When my Father died Him and I had a whole crap load of unresolved issues which obviously never got settled. It still bothers me somewhat to this day but I feel I've moved on.

Same here. My father was quite frankly a hopeless, reckless idiot. Been a few years now but I still haven’t managed to sort it all out. He had a limited company which he bought everything he owned on as a tax dodge  . His accountant quit immediately.

Seems I am liable for the funeral costs. 
And a shredder or a piranha ridden river apparently are not an acceptable option.

[med6753]

just got word that that male parent thing of mine bit the dust today.

I see a bloody hell of paperwork coming my way.

no effing inheritance wanted.

I'm sorry to hear that but I think I know how you feel. When my Father died Him and I had a whole crap load of unresolved issues which obviously never got settled. It still bothers me somewhat to this day but I feel I've moved on.

Same here. My father was quite frankly a hopeless, reckless idiot. Been a few years now but I still haven’t managed to sort it all out. He had a limited company which he bought everything he owned on as a tax dodge  . His accountant quit immediately.

Seems I am liable for the funeral costs. 
And a shredder or a piranha ridden river apparently are not an acceptable option.

How are you liable for funeral costs? Sez who?

[Saskia]

German effing law.
Children are liable for funeral costs for parents.

Need to talk to a lawyer tomorrow.
also need to go to court to declare that I will turn down the inheritance. My daughter will have to do the same. We would only inherit debt anyway.

[Cerebus]

Isn’t that a good application for C4? 

Tsk, tsk. No. I expected you to know better.   ANFO/Amatol is the explosive of choice for digging holes.

Good point. I had filed ANFO under "blowing up exchanges"

Five minutes of explosive trenching. It's like watching Bugs Bunny on Amphetamine+Top Fuel+Nitrous.

[xrunner]

Seems I am liable for the funeral costs. 
And a shredder or a piranha ridden river apparently are not an acceptable option.

I'm setting up a Google calendar reminder (monthly) to remind me to stay off your enemies list. 

[Neomys Sapiens]

just got word that that male parent thing of mine bit the dust today.

I see a bloody hell of paperwork coming my way.

no effing inheritance wanted.

I'm sorry to hear that but I think I know how you feel. When my Father died Him and I had a whole crap load of unresolved issues which obviously never got settled. It still bothers me somewhat to this day but I feel I've moved on.

Same here. My father was quite frankly a hopeless, reckless idiot. Been a few years now but I still haven’t managed to sort it all out. He had a limited company which he bought everything he owned on as a tax dodge  . His accountant quit immediately.

Seems I am liable for the funeral costs. 
And a shredder or a piranha ridden river apparently are not an acceptable option.

Donate to some university?
Donate to zoo with crocodiles?
Donate to the shady guy with the unspecified degree who lives in an old castle and whose hunchback assistant will give you his master's busines card tomorrow after dusk?

[Specmaster]

Just a quick update on my issues with the forum from yesterday, Outlook email addresses are not it seems working still as far logging in and notifications are concerned. After testing these with Gmail, I foolishly reset my email back to Outlook and I forgot that the system sends email to that address to activate your account, thus locking myself out I'm back again but using Gmail address and once the system accepts Outlook again, I'll revert back again. 

[Neomys Sapiens]

@Saskia:
please stay safe. Accidents happen.

[Wolfgang]

Isn’t that a good application for C4? 

Tsk, tsk. No. I expected you to know better.   ANFO/Amatol is the explosive of choice for digging holes.

Agreed. But for a square hole you could use shaped charges 

[mnementh]

Suborbital Crowbar Launcher also makes an oblong crater. Size varies dependent upon global position at time of launch.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

   https://xkcd.com/730/

mnem
yes, you may touch it.

[DC1MC]

The cheap US LeCroy discussed a bit earlier actually powers up, I've messaged the seller and he made some pictures with it on:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/384116654445?ul_noapp=true

How if shipping and VAT won't double the price....