Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

What I found comical was the notion of "laying down the law" with a black woman... decades of experience have taught me that it is almost exclusively the other way around. 
 
I mean... sure, fundamental things like "Stop treating me like furniture or I'm out...", yeah... but anything else...? You're taking your life in your hands.

mnem
"There's only two things keep me from telling you where to go woman... common sense and self-preservation!!!!" ~grand-dad

[med6753]

What I found comical was the notion of "laying down the law" with a black woman... decades of experience have taught me that it is almost exclusively the other way around. 
 
I mean... sure, fundamental things like "Stop treating me like furniture or I'm out...", yeah... but anything else...? You're taking your life in your hands.

mnem
"There's only two things keep me from telling you where to go woman... common sense and self-preservation!!!!" ~grand-dad

There is a saying....."If a black woman is quiet you need to be very afraid" 

[med6753]

Back on topic. Mouser order with the Type 547 parts should be here tomorrow. I'm anxious to get that scope powered up and tested.   

[mnementh]

From the "Thank you sir, may I have another?!?" Dept...



I read in one of the zillion Mac-diddle-this threads that my MacPro and El Capitan OS supposedly have firmware and software support for ATi Radeon 5xxx series GPUs baked in; I have a Sapphire Radeon 5450HD on hand, but it doesn't fit due to the fanless cooler heatsink which wraps around both sides of the card. So I decided to suck it up and dismantle the card for testing; sure enough, the MacPro boots up with a happy chime, and the monitor goes black. And stays that way, but doesn't go into sleep mode; just like a 2nd monitor when Windoze is waiting for you to enter your password.

So What I'm figuring is that the OS doesn't like the specific DeviceID this particular card passes to it during boot, so doesn't send out any video to it... and I have no idea how to fix that...

Well, none that I like; it probably will require allowing myself to be molested by EMACS so I can edit some arcane configuration file nestled deep in OSX...

mnem
* toddles off to open some packages from Asia delivered in today's post*

[Specmaster]

Well unless I'm mistaken, I thought you had laid the LAW down to her when the pair of you got back together again that any more of whatever it was that she did would not be tolerated, maybe you should be dropping some equally big hints right back. 

Nah, that was over 9 months ago. Although, perhaps you're right. Women have memories like elephants and will drag into a "discussion" something you did 20 years ago. 

All very true, strange though how they conveniently forget anything that they have done and how it is always us poor men who invariably end up making the first move to resolve the problems 

[Specmaster]

What I found comical was the notion of "laying down the law" with a black woman... decades of experience have taught me that it is almost exclusively the other way around. 
 
I mean... sure, fundamental things like "Stop treating me like furniture or I'm out...", yeah... but anything else...? You're taking your life in your hands.

mnem
"There's only two things keep me from telling you where to go woman... common sense and self-preservation!!!!" ~grand-dad

The use of the word "LAW" was deliberate there, she is after all the Lady Cop 

[factory]

Almost forgot the German made hp 427A has one too. 

Mine has IEC. And, Option 01, of course.

Yours must be from after 1970ish when they standardised on IEC, mine has a rechargeable battery fitted instead.

David

[mnementh]

What I found comical was the notion of "laying down the law" with a black woman... decades of experience have taught me that it is almost exclusively the other way around. 
 
I mean... sure, fundamental things like "Stop treating me like furniture or I'm out...", yeah... but anything else...? You're taking your life in your hands.

mnem
"There's only two things keep me from telling you where to go woman... common sense and self-preservation!!!!" ~grand-dad

The use of the word "LAW" was deliberate there, she is after all the Lady Cop 

As was my use of the phrase "taking your life in your hands"; she has "on a whim" access to baton, handcuffs and firearms... and she knows where he sleeps.

mnem
"oooooh... that is gonna leave a mark."

[mansaxel]

Did skip bidding on a 8024b today. Even though the snipe I had planned most likely would have carried it. I now have 10 DMM, and not all are working 100%. Time to shorten the project queue (not only the DMM queue as we'll see) a bit.

First up in the queue is the 6237b which shat its mains fuse. New fuses arrive tomorrow, and from there I'll go trouble-shooting.

After that, it's the stupidly postponed recap of the Marconi VTVM; it released actual smoke when I was using it. Two electrolyte filter caps are most suspicious, without even opening it; the aptly named "C4" and its brother "C5". Another electrolyte, C9, is also trivial. The "paper, 0,25µF, 200V" C7, will be replaced with a CDE 254M06QD22. Just ordered them and a few others from Mouser. An order entirely made up of capacitors. That's the life of people keeping boat anchors running.

[mansaxel]

Mine has IEC. And, Option 01, of course.

Yours must be from after 1970ish when they standardised on IEC, mine has a rechargeable battery fitted instead.

Probably, yes.

[bd139]

From the "Thank you sir, may I have another?!?" Dept...



I read in one of the zillion Mac-diddle-this threads that my MacPro and El Capitan OS supposedly have firmware and software support for ATi Radeon 5xxx series GPUs baked in; I have a Sapphire Radeon 5450HD on hand, but it doesn't fit due to the fanless cooler heatsink which wraps around both sides of the card. So I decided to suck it up and dismantle the card for testing; sure enough, the MacPro boots up with a happy chime, and the monitor goes black. And stays that way, but doesn't go into sleep mode; just like a 2nd monitor when Windoze is waiting for you to enter your password.

So What I'm figuring is that the OS doesn't like the specific DeviceID this particular card passes to it during boot, so doesn't send out any video to it... and I have no idea how to fix that...

Well, none that I like; it probably will require allowing myself to be molested by EMACS so I can edit some arcane configuration file nestled deep in OSX...

Bounce it on eBay quick before it consumes your soul.

Also Emacs hasn't shipped with OSX for a long time. You've got vi on there though 

BTW to fix stuff like that you usually have to fuck with plist files deep inside various system folders I have no interest in actually ever giving a shit about. I wish you luck.

Enjoying this MBA. The battery on it is insane. I haven't used it a lot today, only about 2.5 hours total, did one update to macOS 13.3.1 and the battery is still on 86% !?!?!?! Absolutely batshit.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I see. A play on words for a condition in rabbits that I never heard of.

Shall I laugh now or later? 

Carry on.

I do recommend the basement for laughing. 

Oh, I didn't realise you are from Baden Württemberg?

Jep, I am.  (Badener)

Uffbasse! Mer sin in de Iwwerzahl!

[Neomys Sapiens]

What I found comical was the notion of "laying down the law" with a black woman... decades of experience have taught me that it is almost exclusively the other way around. 
 
I mean... sure, fundamental things like "Stop treating me like furniture or I'm out...", yeah... but anything else...? You're taking your life in your hands.

mnem
"There's only two things keep me from telling you where to go woman... common sense and self-preservation!!!!" ~grand-dad

The use of the word "LAW" was deliberate there, she is after all the Lady Cop 

Better to pick up a LAW than to lay it down!

[Cerebus]

Also Emacs hasn't shipped with OSX for a long time. You've got vi on there though 

And ed don't forget:

Code: [Select]

cerebus@shu:~/Desktop$ ed EdgeToPulse.v
277
1p
module EdgeToPulse (input edgeLine, input clk, output reg pulseLine);



[BU508A]

Does anyone happen to know if the problem with the forum sending emails to anyone with a outlook.com address has been fixed yet?

I don't get any notifications from the EEVBlog forum and my email adress isn't outlook.com either.
It seems, that this notification is completely broken.

[BU508A]

What I found comical was the notion of "laying down the law" with a black woman... decades of experience have taught me that it is almost exclusively the other way around. 
 
I mean... sure, fundamental things like "Stop treating me like furniture or I'm out...", yeah... but anything else...? You're taking your life in your hands.

mnem
"There's only two things keep me from telling you where to go woman... common sense and self-preservation!!!!" ~grand-dad

The use of the word "LAW" was deliberate there, she is after all the Lady Cop 

Better to pick up a LAW than to lay it down!

Not showing up to your marriage: a very bad idea.

[Cerebus]

Does anyone happen to know if the problem with the forum sending emails to anyone with a outlook.com address has been fixed yet?

I don't get any notifications from the EEVBlog forum and my email adress isn't outlook.com either.
It seems, that this notification is completely broken.

At some point it was implied that their might be problems with the new temporary servers being on IP addresses that might prompt problems with email because of being on block-lists. However, I've being getting notifications and I tend to use block-lists at the more aggressive end of the spectrum on my personal mail server, so that may only be so much bunkum.

[factory]

Had a bit of a disaster with the Philips PM6645 counter I acquired this week, accidentality shorted the supply for the NIT* to the display logic. 
Before this it was sort of functioning, but seemed to have a problem with the decimal point, a possible faulty NIT, the lamps for the gate & frequency range are mostly blown as well, the only working one "kHz" is very dim too.

Before pictures of an approx 1MHz signal from a hp function gen & the correct reading from the 5245L.



Now it seems to be stuck in a reset state displaying zeros, apart from one NIT that is stuck on two.
The display board contain some obsolete 74 series 74176 & 74196 as well as standard 7490 that I usually find in frequency counter circuits, hopefully those are OK as I haven't got those, I do have some 7475 & 7490 & the NIT driver IC.

*term used by Philips in the "digital instrument course part 2" pdf that can be found on the web.

David

I have 3 x 74196 if you can't find any. I looked for 74176 but I don't think I have those.

Thanks for having a look for those, there does seem to be some old stock on ebay too, the 74176 is available from Europe or a dodgy seller that probably hasn't got any in the UK.

I've been working on the display counter board on it's own, so far I've confirmed the problem with the NIT stuck displaying a two as the 7475 having failed, that has now been changed, it does seem to count OK but only when the shorting link is added.


Think I need to find manual to progress this further, radiomuseum have the circuit diagram but it will take two months to download the set as I'm not a member and don't want to join.

Here are some teardown pictures as mine has some differences to the one on RM.


Logic underneath the display board and power supply section.



Input board with modification that has replaced three custom Philips IC's & a bunch of transistors with this extra board containing more custom parts? including a Plessey IC. Note the trouble someone had working on this.



Oven oscillator option and lots of spider webs in the background.


David

[mnementh]

From the "Thank you sir, may I have another?!?" Dept...   

I read in one of the zillion Mac-diddle-this threads that my MacPro and El Capitan OS supposedly have firmware and software support for ATi Radeon 5xxx series GPUs baked in; I have a Sapphire Radeon 5450HD on hand, but it doesn't fit due to the fanless cooler heatsink which wraps around both sides of the card. So I decided to suck it up and dismantle the card for testing; sure enough, the MacPro boots up with a happy chime, and the monitor goes black. And stays that way, but doesn't go into sleep mode; just like a 2nd monitor when Windoze is waiting for you to enter your password.

So What I'm figuring is that the OS doesn't like the specific DeviceID this particular card passes to it during boot, so doesn't send out any video to it... and I have no idea how to fix that...

Well, none that I like; it probably will require allowing myself to be molested by EMACS so I can edit some arcane configuration file nestled deep in OSX...

Bounce it on eBay quick before it consumes your soul.

Also Emacs hasn't shipped with OSX for a long time. You've got vi on there though 

BTW to fix stuff like that you usually have to fuck with plist files deep inside various system folders I have no interest in actually ever giving a shit about. I wish you luck.

Enjoying this MBA. The battery on it is insane. I haven't used it a lot today, only about 2.5 hours total, did one update to macOS 13.3.1 and the battery is still on 86% !?!?!?! Absolutely batshit.

I wish you both many years and fat happy children together. 

Too late... this is my psycho-bitch redhead PC. Yes, I know she will eat my soul, and yes I know I should "Run, don't walk to the nearest escape hatch..." but she already has her hooks in me...

I knew it.  I remember that shit from my PowerPC days. The more things change, the more they stay the same... I merely loathe vi, tho... I can deal with that. 

I just found a cheap GTX630 which is aboot 2X the card the original GT8800, draws all power from the PCIE slot, and supposedly can be flashed with Mac-specific FW so even the PBE stuff works again. I figured I was willing to throw $40 at this exercise; worst case, I flash it back to stock and use the card elsewhere.

mnem
And of course, I still have the nuclear option: Linux Mint/Cinnamon over the OSX drive.

[mnementh]

Also Emacs hasn't shipped with OSX for a long time. You've got vi on there though 

And ed don't forget:

Code: [Select]

cerebus@shu:~/Desktop$ ed EdgeToPulse.v
277
1p
module EdgeToPulse (input edgeLine, input clk, output reg pulseLine);



You're trying to send me over the edge, aren't you...? 

mnem

[Saskia]

you can always use sed and awk plus cat and pipes plus output redirection to do your editing.

Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don't be late ...

[bd139]

Also Emacs hasn't shipped with OSX for a long time. You've got vi on there though 

And ed don't forget:

Code: [Select]

cerebus@shu:~/Desktop$ ed EdgeToPulse.v
277
1p
module EdgeToPulse (input edgeLine, input clk, output reg pulseLine);



Sick sick sick individual.

If ever the world collapses and all we're left with is line printers you'll be the king of humanity though 

[Specmaster]

Does anyone happen to know if the problem with the forum sending emails to anyone with a outlook.com address has been fixed yet?

Not sure why but it's definitely broken. My forum account is relayed to outlook.com and I'm getting no email if I send myself a PM.

This sort of shit is why I am now smugly vindicated about why the hell I don't run my own mail server 

I'm stuck in limbo land at the moment, I have set my notifications up to gmail.com, and redirections are working from there to outlook.com, or at least they should be, maybe I should give it a test.

[bd139]

I'd wait it out. It's completely knackered still. Report it to the mods at least though. Also if you change any settings on eevblog forum it requires reconfirmation by email so you might end up shit creek without a paddle.

Customers should never have to move a mountain when the problem is at the other end!

Another point to poke people running their own mail servers on: if tomorrow, Microsoft blacklisted you, what's your exit plan?

[mnementh]

The surgery continues...   

Getting old sucks. 

mnem
*toddles off to drain the lizard... again.*

It does, but I think I'm still ahead of the game. I had to desolder and solder my first ever 0603/0602 resistor by hand last night to move a link on the ST STM32F411 Nucleo dev board that I'm using. It was surprisingly trouble free. I still don't think that it's convinced me to drop my "specify nothing smaller than 0805 for anything that I'm going to have to populate by hand" rule though.

Yup... 0602/0603 isn't too bad; I do resistors that size all the time, sometimes even dead-bug. But I prefer to work with 0805 or even 1210 size if I can get away with it, same as you.    It's really heat-sensitive stuff like 0402 LEDs that fuck with my head... often takes me 2 or 3 tries to get one down on the PCB without scorching it to death.

   what sucks most is I used to do this kindof thing with naked eyes and a couple toothpicks. And more often than not, I was successful.

Today... not so much. Operation was a success, but the patient suffered heart failure post-op. I had the movement all together, saw it working... (Jeebus, but that stepping motor rotor is tiny) but some time while assembling the thing in the case I must've nicked the motor coil; it tested open after I noticed the watch had stopped working. 

Switching tactics, I managed to dismantle the "hands" and face from the movement without too much damage; I have another couple of movements on the way from the same vendor.

I'll try using the complete movement this time; see if that improves my odds.

Oklay... so round 3 tonight. One of the packages delivered today was my replacement Miyota watch movements... this time just going to assemble the face & hands on the whole movement like a "normal" timepiece technician would do.

This should be much more relaxing than testicular torment with the psycho-bitch redhead PC... 

mnem