Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Peter_O]

Note the US Navy asset label... there's your explanation for its battered visage!
Also welcome to the enablement thread, hyl   

If massively battered stuff is your prefered challange:
Sometimes there are lots of HP devices on the german bay system posted by Israelian sellers looking like beeing fished from military dumpsters. Including desert dust and bullet holes.   

Yes, those listings make it onto eBay UK also. I haven't had the courage to buy any of them yet!   

Yea. Usually there are better or break even local deals when you consider the shipping and tax costs,  ... and the longer waiting time under cold turkey before arrival. 

[DC1MC]

Got these Lattice analog FPGA !!!, ispPAC10, what should I do with them if I can program them    ?!?!

Cheers,
DC1MC

[med6753]

Note the US Navy asset label... there's your explanation for its battered visage!
Also welcome to the enablement thread, hyl   

If massively battered stuff is your prefered challange:
Sometimes there are lots of HP devices on the german bay system posted by Israelian sellers looking like beeing fished from military dumpsters. Including desert dust and bullet holes.   

We are aware of the Israeli junk dealer. He sells his garbage over here too. 

[beanflying]

Note the US Navy asset label... there's your explanation for its battered visage!
Also welcome to the enablement thread, hyl   

If massively battered stuff is your prefered challange:
Sometimes there are lots of HP devices on the german bay system posted by Israelian sellers looking like beeing fished from military dumpsters. Including desert dust and bullet holes.   

Yes, those listings make it onto eBay UK also. I haven't had the courage to buy any of them yet!   

Yea. Usually there are better or break even local deals when you consider the shipping and tax costs,  ... and the longer waiting time under cold turkey before arrival. 

I think you are all being unkind there are some bargains to be had from Israeli Tech Sellers 

[capt bullshot]

Got these Lattice analog FPGA !!!, ispPAC10, what should I do with them if I can program them    ?!?!

Interesting stuff, never seen or heard of them. Discontinued, alas. Guess they were too expensive for broad acceptance, otherwise looks like one could easily build analog frontends with them.

[0culus]

I'm not even going to attempt to catch up on this thread, but thought I'd drop in to say howdy. I've had a few things follow me home recently. A friend of mine gave me a Type 454 that he had lent to another friend and it blew up on him. That repair is still in progress. The +75 volt regulator failed short and let the +150 unreg onto the +75V rail and killed a bunch of transistors, mostly in the vertical output amp, but also a few in the preamps. Also of note, this failure caused the HV to totally wig out and arc violently inside the HV cage, around the output to the anode. Replacing the failed regulator fixed that fortunately and nothing was damaged in the HV.

I also recently had a NICE Type 547, cart, many plug ins, and manual follow me home from an estate sale. Just did a little touch up adjustments to the time bases and the sweep mag registration, and she's been put to work in the lab!

Welcome back and that 547 looks real good. I'm jealous. I'm still fighting with mine. PSU issues. 

Thanks, it's a real sweet scope. I believe the case can be made that the 547 (and it's dual beam big brother 556) are the finest cathode ray laboratory scopes out there. Jim Williams certainly thought so: https://www.edn.com/be-it-ever-so-high-tech-theres-no-place-like-home/

What's still ailing yours? BTW I got this one off the cart and on it's side to look at the underneath...looks like someone before me replaced a few of the Si rectifiers, much like I had to do with the 585A. Very clean work though, and the rest of it is pristine looking.

[Specmaster]

I'm seeking opinions please. I'm looking at replacing my SSHD drive in my EliteBook with a proper SSD, and I'm thinking about this one Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZ-76E500B-EU-Solid-State/dp/B078WQT6S6/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=SSD+500GB&qid=1620478878&sr=8-4

Its the only that comes with a 5-year warranty on it, the others are 3 year and some don't state what they are. Anyone ever had to call on a warranty claim with Samsung before? If so, how was that experience?

[med6753]

I'm not even going to attempt to catch up on this thread, but thought I'd drop in to say howdy. I've had a few things follow me home recently. A friend of mine gave me a Type 454 that he had lent to another friend and it blew up on him. That repair is still in progress. The +75 volt regulator failed short and let the +150 unreg onto the +75V rail and killed a bunch of transistors, mostly in the vertical output amp, but also a few in the preamps. Also of note, this failure caused the HV to totally wig out and arc violently inside the HV cage, around the output to the anode. Replacing the failed regulator fixed that fortunately and nothing was damaged in the HV.

I also recently had a NICE Type 547, cart, many plug ins, and manual follow me home from an estate sale. Just did a little touch up adjustments to the time bases and the sweep mag registration, and she's been put to work in the lab!

Welcome back and that 547 looks real good. I'm jealous. I'm still fighting with mine. PSU issues. 

Thanks, it's a real sweet scope. I believe the case can be made that the 547 (and it's dual beam big brother 556) are the finest cathode ray laboratory scopes out there. Jim Williams certainly thought so: https://www.edn.com/be-it-ever-so-high-tech-theres-no-place-like-home/

What's still ailing yours? BTW I got this one off the cart and on it's side to look at the underneath...looks like someone before me replaced a few of the Si rectifiers, much like I had to do with the 585A. Very clean work though, and the rest of it is pristine looking.

The +100V supply keeps smoking itself and I'll be damned if I can find the source of the short. The -150V reference is also low.

I may be PM'ing you to take some resistance measurements for me. 

[bd139]

I'm seeking opinions please. I'm looking at replacing my SSHD drive in my EliteBook with a proper SSD, and I'm thinking about this one Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZ-76E500B-EU-Solid-State/dp/B078WQT6S6/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=SSD+500GB&qid=1620478878&sr=8-4

Its the only that comes with a 5-year warranty on it, the others are 3 year and some don't state what they are. Anyone ever had to call on a warranty claim with Samsung before? If so, how was that experience?

We’ve got over a hundred of these drives and later ones in laptops and desktops. I’ve used them for about ten years. Never had to do a warranty claim - they are absolutely rock solid.

[Cerebus]

@bd139: TEArchiver feature creep #276: Ability to index and list all of mnem's sig quips.
#277: Notify when there's a dupe in the list from #276.

#278 Correlate #277 and #266 with time of day and community assessed "Mnem's sanity quotient".

[Cerebus]

Dietary cooking time.
Bean Stew.

hacked tomatos, 1 pound minced meat, 3 peppers, mushrooms,onions, beans, hand full black pepper, hand full hot paprika spice, Oregano, basil, bit of salt, 1 Habanero,1 Carolina Reaper.

Fire in the hole!

Also good timing. 

[Cerebus]

LOL I should have taken a screen shot, but I got an "error giving thanks" on that last post by bitseeker. Never seen that error before. 

Tried a second time and it worked.

Yes i have that sometimes too, but mostly on my iPad, on pc no problem.
it is a weird message like.. '' error thanking your thank you" or something.'

The strains of forum software written in PHP all have these reliability issues. A lot of it comes down to PHP being so deceptively easy to parse for people that should not be let near an IDE, that they all of a sudden start writing add-ons. And since these add-ons clearly scratch an itch for a lot of forum users, if not admins, they  get installed. A lot.

Now, testing every possible combination of this maquis of add-ons is nigh impossible, so people are left to their own figuring out what breaks what (in obvious ways and in not so obvious ways, 34221 posts later).

Stack on top of that a few other assumption-breakers, like caching, time-outs, load balancers, and there's a race to the bottom.

BD139 wrote a couple posts back something to the effect of "all forums suck". I agree. They are at best "tantalizing UI enhancements" to communication problems that Usenet manages better.

I really should get my own Usenet server running. I do however think that a 2-way gate between Usenet and Simple Machines in every way would fulfill all elements of suck detailed above.

Having been an NNTP admin in a former life I suspect it would suck and dribble; the latter in every sense. 

[Cerebus]

Got these Lattice analog FPGA !!!, ispPAC10, what should I do with them if I can program them    ?!?!

Cheers,
DC1MC

Man those are ancient. Lattice, to their endless credit, still have downloadable dev software for those things, long after the devices themselves were shitcanned.

https://www.latticesemi.com/Support/MatureAndDiscontinuedDevices/ispPAC You'll need to have a Lattice login, or register for one, to actually download this.

[hyl]

Tektronix 495p fix and alignment

https://sites.google.com/site/linuxdigitallab/home/tektronix-495p-fix-and-alignment

Welcome, and that's good work.

Can I suggest that you create a new topic in the "Repair" subforum, and use that to point to your reference. That will avoid your useful information being lost in the middle of this thread.

Only a few nutters follow this thread, but far more people will be interested in your work!

Good idea, i would like to post a fix thread.

[Brumby]

Dietary cooking time.
Bean Stew.

hacked tomatos, 1 pound minced meat, 3 peppers, mushrooms,onions, beans, hand full black pepper, hand full hot paprika spice, Oregano, basil, bit of salt, 1 Habanero,1 Carolina Reaper.

Fire in the hole!

Also good timing. 

.... I was also wondering if there was a "secret ingredient" - like 50g of their favourite "condiment".   

That would add an extra dimension to my comment.   

[BU508A]

Somebody has built a DeLorean out of some gas lighters.   



Very cool!   

[tonyalbus]

UNI-T UTG962E with external ref is working!..
It was indeed a ground problem... silly mistake , but it works now, thanks for pointing that out.
Spoiler: i connected my ADF4351 LCD and MAX2870 LCD but they do not output enough power, so its only working now on my 6 Channel PLL,
but is was a nice try.. so if you can amplify that 500 mV to 1,5 Volts.. you have it working cheaper.
still that 50 MHz is not convenient for ext. ref.

[Specmaster]

I'm seeking opinions please. I'm looking at replacing my SSHD drive in my EliteBook with a proper SSD, and I'm thinking about this one Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZ-76E500B-EU-Solid-State/dp/B078WQT6S6/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=SSD+500GB&qid=1620478878&sr=8-4

Its the only that comes with a 5-year warranty on it, the others are 3 year and some don't state what they are. Anyone ever had to call on a warranty claim with Samsung before? If so, how was that experience?

We’ve got over a hundred of these drives and later ones in laptops and desktops. I’ve used them for about ten years. Never had to do a warranty claim - they are absolutely rock solid.

Bah, Amazon are out of stock till June  Argos however aren't and secured my order, just about to install and transfer data etc across

[mansaxel]

BD139 wrote a couple posts back something to the effect of "all forums suck". I agree. They are at best "tantalizing UI enhancements" to communication problems that Usenet manages better.

Usenet was even worse due to the whole eventual consistency thing.

I've sort of resigned to the fact that eventual consistency is the only consistency is we're going to have, at scale. Better then to grasp that critter by the horns or scrotum and deal with it. Which is going to suck, of course.

What we need is some community software that isn’t a total sack of dung. Something that has an open API, federated authentication, structured discussions, doesn’t rely on bbcode and is designed with archival first in mind.

Anyway screw all that high tech guff. I’m off up the ridgeway in the pissing rain with a shit shovel, sandwiches,  soup and my trangia 

Perhaps we're better off with splitting near-realtime chat off to something like Discord or more puristically, Jabber, and let a tool like Usenet deal with the more long thinking posts.

Is like my Leatherman Charge. It's a fantastic knife, screwdriver, pliers, scissors, saw and file until you open the tool cabinet and take the adult versions out. Stuffing too much into one leads to compromises.

I'm very envious of the Trangia excursion, btw.

TE / Shipping Update: Mouser order submitted May 03 20:00 UTC.  Just picked it up from the PostNord storefront. A couple caps for my VTVM, nuts and caps for Studer mixer.

[bd139]

I'm seeking opinions please. I'm looking at replacing my SSHD drive in my EliteBook with a proper SSD, and I'm thinking about this one Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZ-76E500B-EU-Solid-State/dp/B078WQT6S6/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=SSD+500GB&qid=1620478878&sr=8-4

Its the only that comes with a 5-year warranty on it, the others are 3 year and some don't state what they are. Anyone ever had to call on a warranty claim with Samsung before? If so, how was that experience?

We’ve got over a hundred of these drives and later ones in laptops and desktops. I’ve used them for about ten years. Never had to do a warranty claim - they are absolutely rock solid.

Bah, Amazon are out of stock till June  Argos however aren't and secured my order, just about to install and transfer data etc across

Yeah Argos are quite good these days. I had to order something from them the other day because Amazon were out and arrived 2 hours later!  . Enjoy the SSD - they work flawlessly.

Just got back from the walk. Was absolutely crapping it down all day but was a good day out despite being asked to hob it off a hill by some very nice and friendly armed police officers  . Chequers estate for ref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chequers

Inevitable photo up a hill. Didn't realise it was quite as sodden up the top until I got up and realised I had a wet arse 

[tggzzz]

BD139 wrote a couple posts back something to the effect of "all forums suck". I agree. They are at best "tantalizing UI enhancements" to communication problems that Usenet manages better.

Usenet was even worse due to the whole eventual consistency thing.

I've sort of resigned to the fact that eventual consistency is the only consistency is we're going to have, at scale. Better then to grasp that critter by the horns or scrotum and deal with it. Which is going to suck, of course.

Yes, I believe that too. Speed of light isn't infinite, there's no such as global time, and the limits of sequencing were defined decades ago by Leslie Lamport.

If you believe otherwise, I'd like to see what you believe will be the effect on the limitations of two-phase commit protocols - and when three (etc) phase commit protocols are necessary.

Basically parallel processing sucks in ways serial processing doesn't.

Naturally the hardware mob have had to address this inside processors, e.g. superscalar processors, speculative execution, cache coherency etc.

[bd139]

BD139 wrote a couple posts back something to the effect of "all forums suck". I agree. They are at best "tantalizing UI enhancements" to communication problems that Usenet manages better.

Usenet was even worse due to the whole eventual consistency thing.

I've sort of resigned to the fact that eventual consistency is the only consistency is we're going to have, at scale. Better then to grasp that critter by the horns or scrotum and deal with it. Which is going to suck, of course.

Yes, I believe that too. Speed of light isn't infinite, there's no such as global time, and the limits of sequencing were defined decades ago by Leslie Lamport.

If you believe otherwise, I'd like to see what you believe will be the effect on the limitations of two-phase commit protocols - and when three (etc) phase commit protocols are necessary.

Basically parallel processing sucks in ways serial processing doesn't.

Naturally the hardware mob have had to address this inside processors, e.g. superscalar processors, speculative execution, cache coherency etc.

There's another way if you change how you look at the problem from a partitioning perspective. Smaller the partition, the quicker consistency can be resolved as a rule to the point you can have transactional consistency. The trick is to redefine the partition size based on the operation in question and the participants rather than the current lazy arse cheap thinking which is have one partition with all participants in it. This is complicated and specific to every single problem domain and not generic which is why you don't see it.

[jjoonathan]

Note the US Navy asset label... there's your explanation for its battered visage!

Yup, I too have purchased a few bits of kit that the salty seamen have really had their way with.

I'm not complaining, though: the important parts cleaned right up and good prices don't happen often at 40 GHz!

[mnementh]

LOL I should have taken a screen shot, but I got an "error giving thanks" on that last post by bitseeker. Never seen that error before. 

Tried a second time and it worked.

This is a button on my mobile version, I'll post a screenie later

It's not just the mobile frontend; I also get this error from time to time on the full desktop frontend in Windows as well as iOS and Android (yes, I always use full desktop site on those tablets too), ever since we came back from the server fire.

Given all the other "16 flavors of shit" kindof stuff that's been plaguing poor eevBlog since then, and the fact all it takes at worst is a page reload and to "Thank" the post again, this problem wasn't even on my RADAR. 

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

..., there's no such as global time,...

Well, there is, but you only get to find out what it was was about a month after it happened: https://www.bipm.org/en/time-ftp/circular-t.