Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Thankful for small things. Mouser is now completely recovered from their past Covid and ice storm troubles. The order I submitted this afternoon has already been picked up by FedEx for delivery Thursday.   

[Cubdriver]

My TEA story begins pretty much innocently...



"Hey little one... wanna be my best friend?"

I've never had a Tek show up at my door like a stray cat looking for a meal. I've always had to go out and actively hunt them down and sometimes put myself at great peril. Which explains my current medical condition.   

I did.  Once.  When I came home from my December trip to California (or maybe it was February - the past year has been a blur) there was 561B wrapped in a plastic garbage bag waiting on my front porch for me.  I *THINK* it came from my friend's brother in law - he mentioned an old Tek scope he was looking to get rid of and asked if I'd want it.  (Of course we all know my answer to that.)  That was a few years ago, and then it slipped my mind.  I haven't crossed paths with him since then, but suspect that he was the mystery delivery person.

Now if someone would only do that with a triple nickel... 

-Pat

[med6753]

My TEA story begins pretty much innocently...



"Hey little one... wanna be my best friend?"

I've never had a Tek show up at my door like a stray cat looking for a meal. I've always had to go out and actively hunt them down and sometimes put myself at great peril. Which explains my current medical condition.   

I did.  Once.  When I came home from my December trip to California (or maybe it was February - the past year has been a blur) there was 561B wrapped in a plastic garbage bag waiting on my front porch for me.  I *THINK* it came from my friend's brother in law - he mentioned an old Tek scope he was looking to get rid of and asked if I'd want it.  (Of course we all know my answer to that.)  That was a few years ago, and then it slipped my mind.  I haven't crossed paths with him since then, but suspect that he was the mystery delivery person.

Now if someone would only do that with a triple nickel... 

-Pat

BTW, apparently someone did pay the $1K asking for the Type 555 up by Albany. It's gone off CL.

[tautech]

Spilling the beans......

After some unexpected PM's from our OP doing his due diligence on certain products it seems he has weakened and come to our side  however I'll let him do the show and tell when he gets his 2nd hand acquisition. 

[syau]

Thankful for small things. Mouser is now completely recovered from their past Covid and ice storm troubles. The order I submitted this afternoon has already been picked up by FedEx for delivery Thursday.   

Same observation with Mouser but not Digikey 

[mnementh]

& 20gigs ECC RAM.

££££   The RAM for these was and still is expensive.

ECC is always real money. My VmWare host has 292 gibibytes of it, but that was free, just like the server. Server was gifted to me with 64 gibs in, but that proved a bit small when the Minecraft server vm (Devuan, OpenJDK) was to expand..

I could not reasonably expect to pay the asking price, not even the 2nd hand one, for that.

Edit: Yes, I'm contradicting myself, esp. in the light of what was written in the thread after Andrew's post. The crucial, hard-to-get one is to be in the right spot at the right time, when the ECC RAM is truly sûr plus. At all other times and places, ECC commands a premium.

ECC RAM is cheap... All of it except the exact kind you need right now.

mnem
The perversity of the IT motor pool tends to the maximum.

[mnementh]

The end of the ongoing story is...      He brought his friends...

Help! I'm a TEA...   

It's a start.     Welcome to the nuthouse. Here, have a taco...

mnem
That's not a flock... hell, it's barely a gaggle...

Thanks alot  How do you deal with food shortage when you spend all of your money on Test Equipment? Are there any superfoods in order to squeeze few more dollars for a neat Oscilloscope? 

I eat a lot of imaginary tacos.

No, seriously... Priorities in this order:

1) Feed children.

2) Buy TE.

3) Whatever's left over goes to feed me.   🤣

mnem
...or my wife's purse/pedi habit.

[AVGresponding]

It would need to be around its current price to make the journey to collect worthwhile and viable, its approx 360 miles round trip, about 7 to 8 hours driving assuming normal traffic conditions and around £60 for fuel. The probes don't worry me anyway, I have some insulated probes already. I expect the 2 bidders on it already are going closer than I am so would be likely to push that price upwards a bit more yet. I have it on watch and see what happens with it.

Just think of it as a day trip/weekend at the seaside, with the added bonus of finding some cheap TE!

That might even work on the missus...

[Brumby]

I recently sold a 2 hour trip each way to SWMBO by telling her we could drop in on some friends we hadn't seen for ages.  While I also enjoyed the prospect of catching up with them, my real reason was to pick up a laser cutter.

I'm sure you could find some excuse reason for the trip.

[bd139]

Barely used Keysight EDUX1002A on eBay going for about the same price as a used TDS210. I got a seller offer for £200. Was tempted to buy it just to bounce it but no I’m not gonna do it.

This can be cracked and turned into a better scope I understand by changing some resistors on the board.

[Robert763]

40% of new list for a used EDUX1002 'scope without a picture of the actual 'scope? I think I'll pass...

[beanflying]

Sometimes it is worth masking up and going shopping. Beer, Bread and a mid winters Sunset.

[bd139]

40% of new list for a used EDUX1002 'scope without a picture of the actual 'scope? I think I'll pass...

I asked the seller and it’s with original probes as new condition. Low risk but it’s not a great scope. If it was an 1102A I’d be on it like a seagull on chips.

Of course you don’t know if they’ve lost all the probe hardware or ship it in a cereal box with tape around it…

[Andrew_Debbie]

I'm sure a day trip to Mablethorpe to pick it up would be pleasant. Only downside is it doesn't have the correct probes, but you can just wrap some insulation tape around the BNC shells...   [/color][/size][/b]

It would need to be around its current price to make the journey to collect worthwhile and viable, its approx 360 miles round trip, about 7 to 8 hours driving assuming normal traffic conditions and around £60 for fuel. The probes don't worry me anyway, I have some insulated probes already. I expect the 2 bidders on it already are going closer than I am so would be likely to push that price upwards a bit more yet. I have it on watch and see what happens with it.

~450 miles round trip from Anglesey.    With the i3, it would be more like £30 for fuel.   

ABRP says 8 hours 41 minutes round trip, including 2h 28m for 6 stops to charge.      Looking at the maps, I might get that down to 5 stops to charge if I'm willing to risk using one of the 9 year old DBT/CEV chargers.  So 9 1/2 hours when the charger doesn't work and I have to crawl to the next one.     A few months from now,  I might manage it on 4 stops.  Right now, reliable rapid chargers aren't in optimal locations.    North-South is much easier than East-West.

[McBryce]

My TEA story begins pretty much innocently...



"Hey little one... wanna be my best friend?"

"Honest mom! It followed me home. Can we keep it, can we, can we? Aw Pulleeeeeesssse"

McBryce.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Here comes a sad story: It seems I need to have an appointment at the police station.
The deal with the Keithley 2400 took a dark turn, with the seller not willing to provide me with the tracking data. Also some other details rang a bell.

[BU508A]

Here comes a sad story: It seems I need to have an appointment at the police station.
The deal with the Keithley 2400 took a dark turn, with the seller not willing to provide me with the tracking data. Also some other details rang a bell.

Oh dear! 
Keep my fingers crossed, that it'll turn out in a good sense.

How did you've bought it? Ebay Kleinanzeigen?

[tonyalbus]

I am alive.

Very busy with the relocation and the 8 weeks old son (right now with digital output: 1 cry or 0 sleep).

Can't wait to post you guys pics of my new lab (4x time bigger than the Deutsch one).

Back to madness now. I miss you all and some sane TEA.

Congrats and good to see you back!

[Specmaster]

I'm sure a day trip to Mablethorpe to pick it up would be pleasant. Only downside is it doesn't have the correct probes, but you can just wrap some insulation tape around the BNC shells...   [/color][/size][/b]

It would need to be around its current price to make the journey to collect worthwhile and viable, its approx 360 miles round trip, about 7 to 8 hours driving assuming normal traffic conditions and around £60 for fuel. The probes don't worry me anyway, I have some insulated probes already. I expect the 2 bidders on it already are going closer than I am so would be likely to push that price upwards a bit more yet. I have it on watch and see what happens with it.

~450 miles round trip from Anglesey.    With the i3, it would be more like £30 for fuel.   

ABRP says 8 hours 41 minutes round trip, including 2h 28m for 6 stops to charge.      Looking at the maps, I might get that down to 5 stops to charge if I'm willing to risk using one of the 9 year old DBT/CEV chargers.  So 9 1/2 hours when the charger doesn't work and I have to crawl to the next one.     A few months from now,  I might manage it on 4 stops.  Right now, reliable rapid chargers aren't in optimal locations.    North-South is much easier than East-West.

What speed are you driving at?  My route finder says its about 465 miles trip from Anglesey and I have it set to the max speed for each type of road, and it thinks for your journey round trip, with no breaks for refuelling of any kind would be 9hrs 51 minutes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

[Specmaster]

It would need to be around its current price to make the journey to collect worthwhile and viable, its approx 360 miles round trip, about 7 to 8 hours driving assuming normal traffic conditions and around £60 for fuel. The probes don't worry me anyway, I have some insulated probes already. I expect the 2 bidders on it already are going closer than I am so would be likely to push that price upwards a bit more yet. I have it on watch and see what happens with it.

If I want to dissuade myself, my rule of thumb is 25p/mile for fuel and depreciation.

I work around 17p a mile, can't really factor in depreciation as that happens really just sitting outside the front door all year.

[DH7DN]

My TEA story begins pretty much innocently...



"Hey little one... wanna be my best friend?"

"Honest mom! It followed me home. Can we keep it, can we, can we? Aw Pulleeeeeesssse"

McBryce.

Haha, just look into his big, innocent, sinusoid, 5" CRT eyes...

"Cookies Vintage Tektronix Oscilloscopes need love like everything does." 
~~ Agent Smith, The Matrix

Oh boy, I need more space for them... 

[Neomys Sapiens]

Here comes a sad story: It seems I need to have an appointment at the police station.
The deal with the Keithley 2400 took a dark turn, with the seller not willing to provide me with the tracking data. Also some other details rang a bell.

Oh dear! 
Keep my fingers crossed, that it'll turn out in a good sense.

How did you've bought it? Ebay Kleinanzeigen?

Yes. Link provided by ch_scr. And the deal was too good to be true.
And then
- no complete Name and adress given
- Bank data of a german IBAN, but eastern european name
- reluctant communication, seems to be playing on time
Here goes the TEA budget for several months.

I feel like an idiot now. And worse - I had to let a Analogic DP100 multimeter go because of that.

[Andrew_Debbie]

What speed are you driving at?  My route finder says its about 465 miles trip from Anglesey and I have it set to the max speed for each type of road, and it thinks for your journey round trip, with no breaks for refuelling of any kind would be 9hrs 51 minutes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

I reran ABRB and now it says 11h 14m  including 2h24m for 6 charges.    It picked a different route too.    The thing is dynamic, but it must have made an error on the previous run.  I was trying to hand optimise some of the choices and must have hit a bug.

That is with the default maximum speed set to 75.   I know better than to do a long trip with 75mph cruise.   Speed eats range because of i**r losses in the battery.

I don't have the premium subscription that includes real time traffic.   

The Sat Nav in the i3 does that and will adjust available range according to traffic speed and terrain.   In practice it is more realistic than ABPR  and I use to know if I can actually reach the next charger under current conditions.




I ran it again with Vmax set to 60mph.    Came back with 11h5m and a different, longer route.  Huh. 

and one last time at  56mph / ecopro+ mode.    11h 9m  with 5 stops to charge instead of 6.  In practice, this would likely be the quickest.

[ch_scr]

Here comes a sad story: It seems I need to have an appointment at the police station.
The deal with the Keithley 2400 took a dark turn, with the seller not willing to provide me with the tracking data. Also some other details rang a bell.

Oh dear! 
Keep my fingers crossed, that it'll turn out in a good sense.

How did you've bought it? Ebay Kleinanzeigen?

Yes. Link provided by ch_scr. And the deal was too good to be true.
And then
- no complete Name and adress given
- Bank data of a german IBAN, but eastern european name
- reluctant communication, seems to be playing on time
Here goes the TEA budget for several months.

I feel like an idiot now. And worse - I had to let a Analogic DP100 multimeter go because of that.

Sorry to hear that :/
So far my adventures have turned out good, but I have pulled the plug on bad feeling alone before sending money.
Any chance to call the bank and have the money transfer reversed?

[Specmaster]

What speed are you driving at?  My route finder says its about 465 miles trip from Anglesey and I have it set to the max speed for each type of road, and it thinks for your journey round trip, with no breaks for refuelling of any kind would be 9hrs 51 minutes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

I reran ABRB and now it says 11h 14m  including 2h24m for 6 charges.    It picked a different route too.    The thing is dynamic, but it must have made an error on the previous run.  I was trying to hand optimise some of the choices and must have hit a bug.

That is with the default maximum speed set to 75.   I know better than to do a long trip with 75mph cruise.   Speed eats range because of i**r losses in the battery.

I don't have the premium subscription that includes real time traffic.   

The Sat Nav in the i3 does that and will adjust available range according to traffic speed and terrain.   In practice it is more realistic than ABPR  and I use to know if I can actually reach the next charger under current conditions.

(Attachment Link)


I ran it again with Vmax set to 60mph.    Came back with 11h5m and a different, longer route.  Huh. 

and one last time at  56mph / ecopro+ mode.    11h 9m  with 5 stops to charge instead of 6.  In practice, this would likely be the quickest.

I never realised just how crap the range is for the BMW i3, it is pitiful in reality I suppose, the car is only designed as a city car and thats it. I can  do that journey comfortably on a single tank of diesel with a light right foot, with a car that has plenty of space to stretch out in and large 625 litre boot to carry TE acquisitions home in.