Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[McBryce]

Ah, those. The "ewige Studenten" (Forever Students), I knew a few of them too when I studied.

McBryce.

[Robert763]

Back to TEA. I finished the test circuit for the HDSP0860 (amber 4x7) display clock and it works fine. Using 74HCT390s which are decmal rather than binary saves a bit of decoding so just 3 74HCT390s and a 74HCT08 for decode.  I'll probably add a quad EXOR for injecting pulses for time setting. One thing is thet the HDSP display run pretty hot. So I've ordered some 0.5mm silicone thermal transfer material and will run a alloy strip behind the displays as a heatsink.
Off to cut a rectangular hole in the 2mm thick front panel.

Why don't you pulse them?

The HDSP0x60series have an integrated decoder driver so no option to control current. The decimal version does not even have a blanking input for easy PWM dimming.
But they look so nice and I have the HDSP0860s in stock.

[Specmaster]

Data re guns and death, suicide is the issue.

Now that tells a story in its own right. The UK is a very safe place to live compared to most other countries, and it comes as no surprise at all that the country with the most liberal gun laws is also the worlds worst place to live, and it's all down to the way guns can be obtained legally and carried in public. Guns are terrible things in the wrong hands and should be restricted to hunting/sport (under very strict supervision) and the military. 

[tggzzz]

I wonder who will be the first to post a reply relating gun ownership, with politics, with religion, and with the Nazis.

[BU508A]

Please, stop this discussions about politics, religion, guns, etc.
We are here to discuss TEA not the insaneness of the world.
Well, sort of. 

[beanflying]

Please, stop this discussions about politics, religion, guns, etc.
We are here to discuss TEA not the insaneness of the world.
Well, sort of. 

Just remember TEA is a form of insanity  and yep before I go off the deepend about it go join a pro gun forum!

[Specmaster]

Who started the gun topic anyway....

[tonyalbus]

Santa'came to town.

K4 laser engraver 3000mW with bluetooth
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32999308866.html

Whitelabel Juntek PSG9080 Siglan generator 80 MHz .. which turns out to be not white label.. but original. saves me 40 pesos
i think it needs External ref: 
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_AP5w9r

Fake SDRPlay RSP1 , Boss SDR
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_A5YQtn

Dutch decade... but look sespiciouly like General radio 501 modules.

[beanflying]

Only 3W of Tonka Toy Laser - come on in the water is fine in Laser Land with me an a soon to be new member of the gang

[ch_scr]

I think I have almost the same unit without bluetooth. Dangerous toy is the best description I can give. Mechanical truly awfull. Some day I'll have time to replace the also awfull electronics with a GRBL shield.
Edit: Also IIRC I had to turn the led current pot on the small driver to 11 to make it burn anything.

[tonyalbus]

Why dangerous? things i need to think of?
And extra  ?

[tggzzz]

Only 3W of Tonka Toy Laser - come on in the water is fine in Laser Land with me an a soon to be new member of the gang

Remember not to look at the laser's direct or reflected beam with your remaining eye. And warn passers by of that too!

[Cerebus]

Please, stop this discussions about politics, religion, guns, etc.
We are here to discuss TEA not the insaneness of the world.
Well, sort of. 

I never cease to be surprised that even supposedly rational engineers don't look at the facts when it comes to emotive topics. If we are to discuss such things it ought to be as engineers, not as partisans. For instance, the much touted safety of the UK with respect to gun homicides is a little bit of an illusion. You Germans, and the Kiwis, both have about 30% private gun ownership (versus 2.8% in the UK), but have lower homicide rates per gun than the UK. So the simplistic arguments about guns prove empty. It seems that some nations' citizens can be trusted not to slaughter each other whereas others seem to have a more casual attitude to violence. If you rank countries on the basis of homicides per gun per year the USA actually comes in around the middle of the table - they're not quite as murderous as made out - each gun in the USA will on average kill someone every 27,000 years. The UK comes near the bottom with a gun having to exist 140,000 years in private hands before it notches up a homicide. A gun in Germany will go 550,000 years before it will have killed someone.

So gun related homicides seem to have a lot more to do with the overall tendency to murder in any given country than anything to do with guns per se. In fact, if you compare countries overall homicide rates with gun homicide rates per gun available per capita the rankings come out surprisingly similar - El Salvadorans love killing each other (52.2 homicides/100,000), the USA is middling keen on it (4.96), we Brits aren't great fans of slaughter (1.20) and Germany (0.95) and New Zealand (0.70) are positively pacific. It turns out that gun control is not the issue, it's the regard of any given country's citizens for other people's lives that is the issue.

Now, what we really need are some figures on the per capita ownership of test gear. I suspect, but cannot prove, that there's a negative correlation between test gear ownership levels and homicides. Could we prove that, then we've be on a firm engineering footing to found the New World Order - "A chicken in every pot and a scope on every mantelpiece!", "Multimeters for peace - a 4¹/₂ digit DVM in every holster!", "A free state calibration lab in every town!", "Free 80 year old hookers for upstate New York retirees!".



"Cerebus for pope!" - Oh, hold on, that was a different campaign somewhere else.

[Specmaster]

Perhaps the homicide rate per country is more of a reflection of the chances of getting away with it.. just saying..

[BU508A]

*sigh*

[kj7e]

Who started the gun topic anyway....

All I see is Test Equipment  ?

[Robert763]

Santa'came to town.

K4 laser engraver 3000mW with bluetooth

Whitelabel Juntek PSG9080 Siglan generator 80 MHz .. which turns out to be not white label.. but original. saves me 40 pesos
i think it needs External ref: 

Fake SDRPlay RSP1 , Boss SDR

Dutch decade... but look sespiciouly like General radio 501 modules.

Why buy a fake RSP1 when you can get a genuine RSP1A for €99? People doing this will drive the OEMs out of business. Support the inovators not the Chinese. It won't perform as well and it's also illegal.

[Specmaster]

Who started the gun topic anyway....

All I see is Test Equipment  ?

How thoughtful of you, come across a piece of test equipment that is FUBAR, you're well-equipped to take it outside and put it out of its misery, quickly and humanly, I salute you sir 

[mnementh]

Nope. Not gunna suck me in. I'm a gun owner, and I still felt it was my parental duty to get my kids away from gun-crazy USA.

mnem
that is all.

[Peter_O]

[... ]If you rank countries on the basis of homicides per gun per year [...]

Homicides per gun-owner (=citizen having one or more guns available at home) to me would seem a more appropriate statistic to tell something about the peoples attitude.
Even a FAA (Fire-Arm-Anonymous) can use one gun only to kill another person.

Which leads back to the topic: How many TE devices can a TEA employ reasonably at the same time.   

[kj7e]

Nope. Not gunna suck me in. I'm a gun owner, and I still felt it was my parental duty to get my kids away from gun-crazy USA.

mnem
that is all.

I can understand and respect that.  For me, they put meat in the fridge.  I have no delusional ideas about the realistic possibility of a foreign invasion or likely hood of a home break in.

Back on to TE.

[nixiefreqq]

Nope. Not gunna suck me in. I'm a gun owner, and I still felt it was my parental duty to get my kids away from gun-crazy USA.

mnem
that is all.

I can understand and respect that.  For me, they put meat in the fridge.  I have no delusional ideas about the realistic possibility of a foreign invasion or likely hood of a home break in.

Back on to TE.

ahhhhhh.  a fellow wheel gunner.

pulled out my python and a couple of rugers to check their profile against that little blued guy.

what the hell is it?

[Saskia]

folks, while I am also a legal gun owner and met my husband on the gun range (as a fellow IPSC shooter) I think that this is such a controversial matter that we should table this.

Btw. ex Manurhin MR93 / S&W 500 / still kicking: STI Sparta / Drake .338LM

[wkb]

Perhaps the homicide rate per country is more of a reflection of the chances of getting away with it.. just saying..

Being a cop helps.  In very specific countries that is.

[Specmaster]

Where is bd139?
Missing him somehow ...

I've PM'd him but so far no response, I'm hoping that everything is OK. I know that he has been listed some TEA items on the evil bay lately, so I hope that doesnt mean that he's getting fed up with electronics again like he did a while ago. Keeping everything crossed and hoping that everything is fine with him right now.

EDIT: I just checked, his post on here was Friday 14th