Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

My back neighbor has been digging that hole for 3 days now. He digs for a while. Then stops. Then comes back and digs some more. I've never met him but I've been told he's a little weird. Luckily there's no underground utilities like gas, water, or electric which would certainly liven up his day. 

[SilverSolder]

Seems to me that eBay's motivation in getting your bank account, is to "nudge" people off PayPal and into their own payment system...

I mean, what other possible reason could there be?

Shake your money maker...

No it's not even that. Adyen is just a payment processor not an arbitration service. They wanted off paypal so that they could have a single outcome of arbitration i.e. theirs which means they can protect sellers and buyers. The only reason anyone uses ebay is because of the protection in place and there are other platforms out there which they have to compete with (finally) so they focused on that. Also Adyen takes less of a slice of sellers margins which means that the platform is competitive with other platforms like Amazon, Banggood, Aliexpress on small price products. ebay is a storefront so low margin operation is a business win for everyone.

I think it's about simplification and consolidation rather than a policy of making more cash because they probably aren't making anything more other than failing to lose the costs from running paypal integrations.

People use eBay because that's where the stuff is...    As a seller, you lose up to 30% overall by the time shipping and various other fees and taxes are taken into account...  it is a hard life to be an eBay seller, for sure!

[xrunner]

My back neighbor has been digging that hole for 3 days now. He digs for a while. Then stops. Then comes back and digs some more. I've never met him but I've been told he's a little weird. Luckily there's no underground utilities like gas, water, or electric which would certainly liven up his day. 

Past three days ...
May have been contracted by a certain poster in this thread. 

[bd139]

People use eBay because that's where the stuff is...    As a seller, you lose up to 30% overall by the time shipping and various other fees and taxes are taken into account...  it is a hard life to be an eBay seller, for sure!

Well not necessarily. There are a few places which are more specialist where you get a better deal. Vinted for clothes for example has screwed ebay over entirely. Schpock is denting the "general shite" market.

Also you only lose 30% if you don't know how to game it. Just sold that FT818ND. That cost me 0.2% in fees and the buyer paid the postage

Edit: I think ebay will be dead within a decade. It has pushed into the "store front" market heavily and shot the traditional userbase. Also I think general second hand market is dying on its arse at the moment generally. The price disparity between new stuff and second hand stuff isn't much so it's barely worth it now on most items. The only reason to use it still is for specialist items with large price disparity between new and second hand (test gear is a fine example!)

[SilverSolder]

People use eBay because that's where the stuff is...    As a seller, you lose up to 30% overall by the time shipping and various other fees and taxes are taken into account...  it is a hard life to be an eBay seller, for sure!

Well not necessarily. There are a few places which are more specialist where you get a better deal. Vinted for clothes for example has screwed ebay over entirely. Schpock is denting the "general shite" market.

Also you only lose 30% if you don't know how to game it. Just sold that FT818ND. That cost me 0.2% in fees and the buyer paid the postage

Edit: I think ebay will be dead within a decade. It has pushed into the "store front" market heavily and shot the traditional userbase. Also I think general second hand market is dying on its arse at the moment generally. The price disparity between new stuff and second hand stuff isn't much so it's barely worth it now on most items. The only reason to use it still is for specialist items with large price disparity between new and second hand (test gear is a fine example!)

I'll take a look at the alternatives you mentioned, but I've never been "not disappointed" with an eBay alternative so far, simply due to the smaller number of sellers...

And please, share how you got the fees down to 0.2%, LOL! 

[mansaxel]

DD is the antithesis of that - any mug with a SUN can steal money from anyone and any mug can get one.

Thank you for this explanation! There is no such thing as DD here, never was, I think. Bank account numbers aren't secret either. Hell, one of my accounts (The old royal mail savings account I got given back in 1972 or so, now a very basic account in Nordea) is the same as my SSN. And that's not secret either. Never was.  Which is why I could not understand all the "not giving out bank account number" principles from overseas. Now I understand more. Good.

Anyway this is my day job so I'm done now as it's 17:30

My day job today involved explaining BGP path selection algorithm to a manager. While sounding professional. 

[bd139]

You can't explain magic to a muggle

Good to hear with the DD not existing there.

Another one on bank account security. I just closed my HSBC account because quite frankly they are epic wankers. All they needed was a paper form filled in, a single signature and a destination account number and sort code... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 

[mansaxel]

Being at the counter while someone else is umming and ahhing about whether they can afford to draw out £3 is a sobering and saddening experience.[/color][/size][/b]

I haven't been inside a bank since I started working at current job. They initially had some issues with depositing my salary in the right account so I got something akin to a money order instead. Which had to be deposited in person. How inconvenient.  I've gotten all my wages straight into my account for most of the last 30 years. One employer used cheques. Very cumbersome.

[bd139]

Better than one employer I had. I got paid weekly by being handed a brown envelope full of notes out of a BMW with blacked out windows outside Leytonstone tube station when it was dark 

Cerebus will probably be closest to understanding how dodgy that looks.

[bd139]

And please, share how you got the fees down to 0.2%, LOL! 

£1 max fees promo and £480 item 

They do similar "sell for a dollar" promotion over in the US. You have to look at your sellers page and look for selling promos or subscribe to their spam for it.

[mansaxel]

Better than one employer I had. I got paid weekly by being handed a brown envelope full of notes out of a BMW with blacked out windows outside Leytonstone tube station when it was dark 

Cerebus will probably be closest to understanding how dodgy that looks.

Eh, the mental images are very convincing.

When I worked live sound for a living, I sometimes had the not enviable job of collecting the payment. This involved carrying reasonably large amounts of cash (noone in their right mind trusts a promoters' cheque..) from dodgy clubs in the middle of the night, to deposit in the safe back at base. Once I got to carry well over 10KSEK (which was a lot back then, and still today would get you mugged) in used banknotes, with a fair amount being 20SEK ones. Luckily there was no coins involved. 

[Cerebus]

Better than one employer I had. I got paid weekly by being handed a brown envelope full of notes out of a BMW with blacked out windows outside Leytonstone tube station when it was dark 

Cerebus will probably be closest to understanding how dodgy that looks.

What, like the gentleman who pulls up in a BMW outside my neighbour's house, she comes straight out, a hand goes in the window holding one thing, comes out holding something else and he immediately drives off. Total dwell time, 20 seconds. That kind of optic? Sure, I understand. Then set it by Leytonstone tube station:

[bd139]

That image is hilarious as that's the most Leytonstone picture ever. Other than the python eating a pigeon outside the post office 

[Specmaster]

My back neighbor has been digging that hole for 3 days now. He digs for a while. Then stops. Then comes back and digs some more. I've never met him but I've been told he's a little weird. Luckily there's no underground utilities like gas, water, or electric which would certainly liven up his day. 

Hmm, maybe he's a doomsday prepper and he's build himself a bunker?

[Specmaster]

Better than one employer I had. I got paid weekly by being handed a brown envelope full of notes out of a BMW with blacked out windows outside Leytonstone tube station when it was dark 

Cerebus will probably be closest to understanding how dodgy that looks.

Did this "job" involve standing on street corners and hanging out near schools, nightclubs etc? 

[bd139]

No. But it did involve a lot of whisky, g-strings and a redhead

[Cerebus]

Oh, were you working for Richard Desmond? 

[bd139]

No nothing that exciting I assure you 

On TE for a change. I have managed to persuade a local ham to lend me his bodnar reference for a couple of days so I can cal my counters. Thus saving me some £££ 

Also thinking about bouncing the Racal 9917 because quite frankly it’s blown up twice and I’m scared of it now.

And thirdly considering making a low ball offer on the 5334b on eBay at the moment and upgrading it like I did with the last one. It has a few more “low speed” applications than the 5384A as it’s a universal counter.

[25 CPS]

As promised, I made a bit of time before work to get the Tektronix 502A on the bench and powered up.  It marred the surface of that bench but oh well.  It already got its first battle scars from the HP signal generator in the background.



I used a Hewlett Packard 3310A function generator to provide an input signal.  I’ve never seen a Tektronix oscilloscope of this vintage in action in person before and the descriptions out there of the traces being pencil thin are no exaggeration. The phosphor is a really striking blue and very intense, almost painful to look at if it’s turned up too high.

Both input channels work but the triggering doesn’t and both traces vanish whenever the trigger level knob is moved off the far clockwise range of travel.  I don’t know if that’s due to user error on my part, not enough time running to get tubes and Nuvistors fully woken up after sitting idle for an indeterminate amount of time, or if the trigger section actually does have problems.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have as much time to play with it as I’d have liked before leaving for work so it didn’t get a long run-in time to start coming alive with and I wanted to get some other test equipment spun up while I was down there.

But differential inputs!  This is something that is going to be really handy for balanced line audio work so I want to restore it and find it a more permanent home on or easy reach from the bench.

[BU508A]

Oooh!

I do like those blue CRTs!     
Nice one!

[capt bullshot]

Oooh!

I do like those blue CRTs!     
Nice one!

Never seen one in real life. Now I'm envious.

But I really don't like bright blue LEDs

[capt bullshot]

BTW, this is the display of that ugly Peak Tech power supply that I couldn't be bothered to repair ...
All 6 output transistors (three per channel, good ol' 2N3055) are shorted, I had cut them all and replaced one to see if the error amp is alive - nope.
The person who killed the thing said, he'd connected a DC-link charged to 300V to the output - no wonder it's all blown, but I can't find blasted ICs or other components.

[25 CPS]

Oooh!

I do like those blue CRTs!     
Nice one!

The blue CRT surprised me, actually.  I wasn't expecting to see that once the traces came up.  I wonder if that specific phosphor was intended to be matched up against a peak in sensitivity in film used in scope cameras to photograph traces.

Never seen one in real life. Now I'm envious.

But I really don't like bright blue LEDs

I had to turn down the intensity quite a bit when I did that brief test.  The CRT was easily able to go bright enough to make me wince like intense blue LEDs can.  The difference between a pleasing sharp blue trace and one that's painful to look at was easy to cross.

[capt bullshot]

New Page



Edit: screenshot

[25 CPS]

New Page

You beat me to it.  The 3580A was the other piece of test equipment I pulled out today since I knew the page number was coming up!  I really did a bad job setting up the front panel parameters for that picture.  I really should’ve expanded the LO feed through off to the left edge of the screen but oh well, like the 502A, casualty of limited playtime before having to tear out the door to go to work.