Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Even when the brain is suitably coffee dosed CRT terminology for the various voltages/supplies gets confusing.
Say with a valve CRO we can have at least 2 rails that can be considered as HV but only one if it's a solid state CRO.
CRT voltages also often are referred to as HV but really HT or EHT is a better differentiation when it's typically -2KV or more but then there's what only can correctly called PDA, inverted from the EHT and now a positive voltage generated by treblers, or quintuplers.
IMO they should always be referred to correctly and can to some degree be differentiated by where they are used in a CRO. Anything to do with the CRT should be called EHT or PDA whereas the much lower supplies for the general scope circuitry are mostly LV except for those used for plate drive which IMO are the only HV in a CRO.

Yeah it can be confusing and one might argue about this all day but they are each very different voltages for very different purposes and should be referred to without the chance of ambiguity.
HV
EHT
PDA
  

You can call it whatever you like. I call it "HV", Tek calls it "HV". Good enough for me. 

[tonyalbus]

Found some cool stuff on my local ebay..

[mnementh]

Im'o gonn' come mug you for all that yummy RG316.   

mnem

[mnementh]

...As soon as you add bluetooth, you add someone else's undocumented software. Which will fuck you.

         
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B075R13CV5

Case in point... today's modding project. Y'all may remember me talking aboot lobotomizing Alexa from my "Smart" dock; well, as you can see, the stoopit dock hack went deliciously, aside from the fact of having to get a different BT amplifier board that actually fits inside the space.

A little exploratory surgery, add some nice silicone power wires to the new BT PCB, and heat/screw a m3 stud into one of the screw holes for the Alexa-infested OEM BT speaker PCB and then a 10mm standoff. Added a self-adhesive Stepper Driver cooler just cuz it was handy, then a JST-SH socket scrounged from a scrap PCB for the speakers and Yes! It all works. As soon as power is applied it goes into pairing mode, and nice simple Windows-like tones for "Pairing", "Paired" and "Connected" modes... no unintelligible voice prompts in Chinese or worse, heavily accented Chinglish, etc... w00t!

   

Button it all up, put the Doobie Bros station on Prime Music and actually, sound is pretty damned good (as always, for something this small  ). And because it sits in a corner by my bed, I even get some of the rear-facing right channel sound reflected back at me! 

Then, I put the tablet in the dock and... it automatically disconnects the BT.  I can then go and reconnect the BT while it's on the dock but... as soon as I pick it up off the dock, the tablet disconnects again. What. The. FUCK!!!

*Directed at fucking Lenovo* Why in the world would you morons ever think I want this behavior...?

And worse, why would you make it so I can't turn it off...?

I mean, it's not like this is a deal-breaker... it's just... fuck!!! It turns what would otherwise be an awesome little speaker into a cringe.

Every. fucking. time. you use it.   

And there's no good reason for them to have written extra software to change the default behavior of Android here, except something stoopit for the Alexa integration. And that is not a good reason.

mnem
fucking bitches...

[Peter_O]

One scope from HP's first all purpose digital series must be allowed, or ... 
I mean, from the pre floppy era.   :-)

Anyway, I had to rescue this 54504 400 Mhz guy with handbooks and in perfect shape for about 175 Euros including shipping.

First start: fan running, black screen
Second start: scope running ... into some kind of error after a while and asking for restart
Third start: scope running, all self tests passed

Voltage measurement seems to be a bit low. Shoud be 500 mV but shows 485mV.

1) I wonder, if RAM/battery might need replacement

2) What would be a matching probe within a reasonable budget?
Maybe it was a mistake to grab a 400Mhz model with an input capacity of 7pF, as most cheap probes starts with 10pF compensation.

[BU508A]

Very nice over-engineering project. It includes CNCing plywood, 3D-printing, machining, soldering and sometimes silent cursing. 



Enjoy!

[med6753]

Tomorrow the battle resumes with a vengeance as I go toe-to-toe with the Type 547 again. I will be testing tubes in the Type 535A so I wanted to make sure it's in good nick (It is).

One way or another I will conquer the PSU issue. 

[tggzzz]

Ever tried to do some 'actual electronic' Soldering with a Gas iron? Not an experience I ever want to have again before you get to the dangers of carrying Butane in a  vehicle in the Aussie climate or go near a plane to travel with one.

Yes, with a red hot poker, heated on the gas hob. Not recently, fortunately.

Well, I finally found my first soldering iron again - that red hot poker.




When I first heated it up again, the green Cu flame was rather pretty.




And a pleasant red when excessively hot




Of course, back then I never encountered ground planes. If I had, then I would have had to use this 840g one...

[Specmaster]

Very nice over-engineering project. It includes CNCing plywood, 3D-printing, machining, soldering and sometimes silent cursing. 



Enjoy!

A very interesting video, thanks for sharing it.

[AVGresponding]

Do I need to send you some connectors now? When you say 'internal interconnects' SMA PCB jacks would be probably ok - together with some SMA cables? But RCA? puh-leeze!

In any case, depending on how refined I make my design, I might need as many as 20 or more plug and socket pairs.

[25 CPS]

And now for something completely different, as you might know, there is a little something going on in Cornwall UK, called the G7 Summit and there is one nation that will more than likely be lecturing the other member nations about the need to tackle climate change, just a shame that they don't lead by example, who is it, why it's the USA, who else. There has been an insane amount of transatlantic flights undertaken by hoards of C17's and C5's and presidential planes along with the relocations of loads of KC135, Hercules and Ospreys into Newquay, Brize Norton, Stanstead, Mildenhall, Lakenheath, Fairford and Northolt. I'd hate to think about the carbon footprint of that operation so far, which has one more airport to add to its list on Sunday, Heathrow, when the President departs for NATO meetings and the First Lady returns to the White House.

That said, it has been a dream for my son and I with all the photographic opportunities. Wednesday we were at Mildenhall hoping to catch a busy day of operations, but we were disappointed as it was in a lockdown in preparations for the arrival of AF1 and support aircraft amid a massive security operation all around the airfield with photographers lining the road outside the base being moved on by police. That said, however, there were 2 locations we were allowed in, not ideal as it meant shooting through a chain link fence but for those interested people here are a couple of photos I managed to get after waiting around for almost 10 hours.

I will be trying to get some better shots of these departing Heathrow on Sunday if we can find a location that we will be allowed to shoot from. 

After Sunday, all of those aircraft movements and support flights on the C5's and C17's will be reversed again in order to return all the cars, helicopters etc, back where they came from.

I'm sure they're all going to talk about how everyone else needs to reduce their carbon footprint after burning tons of jet fuel to get there and back.

Did you see the Government of Canada plane that brought Justin "Now is not the time to travel" Trudeau there?

Rules for thee but not for mee on all sides at that shindig, that's for sure.

[Saskia]

Something not quite as overengineered.

A bike suited for our tinkerdwagon ...

[Saskia]

not much going on except sheeeeetloads of work ..

inquired regarding a Xilinx Versal board. My boss told me to go out and explore options for obtaining it.
Requested a quote for a nice training system for my machine translation system.
Should have the quote for a DGX-A100 sometime next week.

Currently working on integration into other systems. My QA-system built on a single server did manage to munch through 60 translations per second for 7 hours straight.

100% success rate, no translation errors. Quite happy there.

Preparing roll out for about 50 000 translation clients for employee desktops and notebooks. Will work out the Azure stuff later on.

[Saskia]

got an interesting thingie on the bench.

I dropped a mainboard by mistake. Eff my luck. One of the main SMD caps (120 u 35V) tore off. It left the pads undamaged.

Unfortunately I do not have my scope, kapton tape, microscope, rework stuff with me, just a TS100 (lead battery powered) which I used to attach a radial 120u cap.
The board starts up for about 30 seconds, goes thru self test and then powers down. So I am wondering: what else broke. Could be that the BGA CPU package suffered, could be that the cap I soldered in is not up to specs.

I got a replacement SMD 120u low ESR cap from Panasonic and I will try to solder it to the pad when I have my rework equipment with me. With the battery powered TS100 I just cannot do it. Will probably need some solder paste, flux, cleaning of pads and hot air while protecting the rest of the board with kapton tape.

Bloody hell.

In other news, fixed a Vectrex game console (manufactured in 1982). Controller and sound functional again.

[mnementh]

Do I need to send you some connectors now? When you say 'internal interconnects' SMA PCB jacks would be probably ok - together with some SMA cables? But RCA? puh-leeze!

In any case, depending on how refined I make my design, I might need as many as 20 or more plug and socket pairs.

When I make multiple copies of a board, or need cheap interconnects for external or internal connections, there's two very economical and convenient resources many people don't know aboot:

   https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cctv+pigtail

These 5.5mm x 2.1mm coaxial DC power pigtail pairs are crazy cheap for what you get; typically $10-20 for 10 pairs. They come with 22-16ga wires, in red/black or plain black sheath, with or without 1/4 turn locks. There are also variants with screw terminal blocks on male/female pairs of Coaxial DC connectors; you'll see them as well in the above search.

   https://www.amazon.com/s?k=lipo+Balance+extension

When I need lots of inexpensive, easily human-handled interconnects between PCBs inside a project box, one of my favorite sources is LiPo balance extension cables. These usually come in 5-10 packs for $10-20, in 3-7 conductor versions with 150mm-250mm length, premade with JST-XH socket on one end and plug on the other. The nice part is decent-heavy 22ga silicone wires which are a joy to work with, as they don't melt away like bubble-gum if you dare to solder the wires directly. 

If you can spare the time to strip the wires off the socket, they can go straight to a PCB and solder the other end. Or cut the socket end off and crimp a new JST-XH plug to make a plug-plug interconnect in half the time. Or just cut the extension in half and solder wires directly to the board at both ends with or without ferrules or whatever other strain relief as you see fit.

Cheers,

mnem
'lectronic Legos...

[tautech]

Even when the brain is suitably coffee dosed CRT terminology for the various voltages/supplies gets confusing.
Say with a valve CRO we can have at least 2 rails that can be considered as HV but only one if it's a solid state CRO.
CRT voltages also often are referred to as HV but really HT or EHT is a better differentiation when it's typically -2KV or more but then there's what only can correctly called PDA, inverted from the EHT and now a positive voltage generated by treblers, or quintuplers.
IMO they should always be referred to correctly and can to some degree be differentiated by where they are used in a CRO. Anything to do with the CRT should be called EHT or PDA whereas the much lower supplies for the general scope circuitry are mostly LV except for those used for plate drive which IMO are the only HV in a CRO.

Yeah it can be confusing and one might argue about this all day but they are each very different voltages for very different purposes and should be referred to without the chance of ambiguity.
HV
EHT
PDA
  

You can call it whatever you like. I call it "HV", Tek calls it "HV". Good enough for me. 

Tek and you are correct in regard to yesteryear century CRO's but today we should better differentiate between the different classes of voltages we encounter in equipment.

And back in them days of Teks legacy valve CRO's every power rail was HV and few if any of those legacy toobe scopes had PDA as their low BW didn't require it.
Then only the level of zap varies whereas a solid state CRO only has HV for plate drive and typically less than 200V and EHT at a totally different level of zap and opposite polarity WRT ground plus a PDA too !

[mnementh]

Something not quite as overengineered. A bike suited for our tinkerdwagon ...

I built far worse in my youth. 

mnem

[mnementh]

Even when the brain is suitably coffee dosed CRT terminology for the various voltages/supplies gets confusing.
Say with a valve CRO we can have at least 2 rails that can be considered as HV but only one if it's a solid state CRO.
CRT voltages also often are referred to as HV but really HT or EHT is a better differentiation when it's typically -2KV or more but then there's what only can correctly called PDA, inverted from the EHT and now a positive voltage generated by treblers, or quintuplers.
IMO they should always be referred to correctly and can to some degree be differentiated by where they are used in a CRO. Anything to do with the CRT should be called EHT or PDA whereas the much lower supplies for the general scope circuitry are mostly LV except for those used for plate drive which IMO are the only HV in a CRO.

Yeah it can be confusing and one might argue about this all day but they are each very different voltages for very different purposes and should be referred to without the chance of ambiguity.
HV
EHT
PDA
  

You can call it whatever you like. I call it "HV", Tek calls it "HV". Good enough for me. 

Tek and you are correct in regard to yesteryear century CRO's but today we should better differentiate between the different classes of voltages we encounter in equipment.

And back in them days of Teks legacy valve CRO's every power rail was HV and few if any of those legacy toobe scopes had PDA as their low BW didn't require it.
Then only the level of zap varies whereas a solid state CRO only has HV for plate drive and typically less than 200V and EHT at a totally different level of zap and opposite polarity WRT ground plus a PDA too !

Funny, it all hurts the same hooked up to yer nutsack!!! 

mnem
"oooh... foreplay..." she said.

[mindcrime]

I built far worse in my youth. 

mnem

Somebody's been watching "Mad Max" movies again...

[cyclin_al]

Even when the brain is suitably coffee dosed CRT terminology for the various voltages/supplies gets confusing.
Say with a valve CRO we can have at least 2 rails that can be considered as HV but only one if it's a solid state CRO.
CRT voltages also often are referred to as HV but really HT or EHT is a better differentiation when it's typically -2KV or more but then there's what only can correctly called PDA, inverted from the EHT and now a positive voltage generated by treblers, or quintuplers.
IMO they should always be referred to correctly and can to some degree be differentiated by where they are used in a CRO. Anything to do with the CRT should be called EHT or PDA whereas the much lower supplies for the general scope circuitry are mostly LV except for those used for plate drive which IMO are the only HV in a CRO.

Yeah it can be confusing and one might argue about this all day but they are each very different voltages for very different purposes and should be referred to without the chance of ambiguity.
HV
EHT
PDA
  

You can call it whatever you like. I call it "HV", Tek calls it "HV". Good enough for me. 

Tek and you are correct in regard to yesteryear century CRO's but today we should better differentiate between the different classes of voltages we encounter in equipment.

And back in them days of Teks legacy valve CRO's every power rail was HV and few if any of those legacy toobe scopes had PDA as their low BW didn't require it.
Then only the level of zap varies whereas a solid state CRO only has HV for plate drive and typically less than 200V and EHT at a totally different level of zap and opposite polarity WRT ground plus a PDA too !

Funny, it all hurts the same hooked up to yer nutsack!!! 

mnem
"oooh... foreplay..." she said.

Then, stop peeing on electric fences ..... 

-agitatingly
-- Why does spell check want to change that to titillatingly?  Totally inappropriate for this crowd 

[mnementh]

No, perfectly appropriate to this highly inappropriate crowd. 

mnem
also, no.

[beanflying]

Sickos 

Latest Parametric Model GT2 rack and pinion generator

edit also sample Nixie Wannabe blades.

And showing major manual dexterity holding a bodged 0603 LED in place while aligning the blades with electrical tape curtains and shooting the shot with the other hand ..... Need to reduce the cut speed a little to improve the edge quality also maybe a single engrave text line might give better clarity. V1 done and more experimenting to do.

[Specmaster]

And now for something completely different, as you might know, there is a little something going on in Cornwall UK, called the G7 Summit and there is one nation that will more than likely be lecturing the other member nations about the need to tackle climate change, just a shame that they don't lead by example, who is it, why it's the USA, who else. There has been an insane amount of transatlantic flights undertaken by hoards of C17's and C5's and presidential planes along with the relocations of loads of KC135, Hercules and Ospreys into Newquay, Brize Norton, Stanstead, Mildenhall, Lakenheath, Fairford and Northolt. I'd hate to think about the carbon footprint of that operation so far, which has one more airport to add to its list on Sunday, Heathrow, when the President departs for NATO meetings and the First Lady returns to the White House.

That said, it has been a dream for my son and I with all the photographic opportunities. Wednesday we were at Mildenhall hoping to catch a busy day of operations, but we were disappointed as it was in a lockdown in preparations for the arrival of AF1 and support aircraft amid a massive security operation all around the airfield with photographers lining the road outside the base being moved on by police. That said, however, there were 2 locations we were allowed in, not ideal as it meant shooting through a chain link fence but for those interested people here are a couple of photos I managed to get after waiting around for almost 10 hours.

I will be trying to get some better shots of these departing Heathrow on Sunday if we can find a location that we will be allowed to shoot from. 

After Sunday, all of those aircraft movements and support flights on the C5's and C17's will be reversed again in order to return all the cars, helicopters etc, back where they came from.

I'm sure they're all going to talk about how everyone else needs to reduce their carbon footprint after burning tons of jet fuel to get there and back.

Did you see the Government of Canada plane that brought Justin "Now is not the time to travel" Trudeau there?

Rules for thee but not for mee on all sides at that shindig, that's for sure.

No I never saw any other planes, only the USA ones. I think that all the other heads of state flew directly into Newquay airport and also accepted the transportation to and from the various locations that we provided them while they are here.

Its only Biden that has been invited by the Queen for afternoon tea at Windsor Castle on Sunday before he heads of for NATO talks so as a result he has had to have so many plane movements to minimize his exposure on the ground so to speak. The USA is also the only nation to have military bases here in the UK, hence his visit to RAF Mildenhall in order to address many of the staff from other bases at the same time.

But you're right, it is all about one rule for them and their wealthy mates and another for me and thee.

[Robert763]

I didn't see them all doing a 10 day quarrantine in a designated hotel on arrival either 

[Specmaster]

The leaders never did, although there is I understand regular live tests being conducted at the meeting. Those that had their securty staff sent over certainly did as Bidens team were flown into Stanstead, all 32 of them, 2 weeks ago.