Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Robert763]

I went for the middle ground, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV 2016MY with the 2.0 engine. Bought it used, private owner and as it was registered before April 2017 it is zero road tax and no congestion charge. No practical way to charge at home but I can charge for free at work and that covers my 22 odd mile commute on electric only. It's at it's worst on a motorway fast run, about 40 MPG but does well on A roads and in town.
Loads of space for TE even with the seats up.

No form of an electric vehicle is an option for me or for most Brits as the vast majority of people are forced to use on street parking at home and even at work sometimes as provided parking spaces have become a taxable item (at least I think they are, I know it was mooted before I retired) and electric charging stations on residential roads I cannot that ever happening, especially as I have 3 neighbours now who have between them 12 or more cars and double park. I can also see such points becoming targets for thieves stealing electric for their cars etc, being vandalised and attracting massive insurance premiums with the potential for others to receive electric shocks from. Then of course we have the other high risk factor, and that is that when we have electric vehicles and the sales of ICE vehicles are banned, we'll all be at the power worker's mercy, and they will then have the power in their hands to hold the country to ransom. A couple of days of power cuts through strike action will cripple the entire infrastructure. 

No tax on charging personal EV or PHEV at work in UK. Previously employer had to ask for exemption, but changed to blanket no tax a couple of years ago.

[capt bullshot]

Tempting ...
Agilent 34401A for 350 Euro

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/agilent-keysight-34401a-digitalmultimeter/1815203242-168-9250

Indeed. Must. Resist. Already. Got. Four. Of. Them.

[cyclin_al]

I went for the middle ground, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV 2016MY with the 2.0 engine. Bought it used, private owner and as it was registered before April 2017 it is zero road tax and no congestion charge. No practical way to charge at home but I can charge for free at work and that covers my 22 odd mile commute on electric only. It's at it's worst on a motorway fast run, about 40 MPG but does well on A roads and in town.
Loads of space for TE even with the seats up.

No form of an electric vehicle is an option for me or for most Brits as the vast majority of people are forced to use on street parking at home and even at work sometimes as provided parking spaces have become a taxable item (at least I think they are, I know it was mooted before I retired) and electric charging stations on residential roads I cannot that ever happening, especially as I have 3 neighbours now who have between them 12 or more cars and double park. I can also see such points becoming targets for thieves stealing electric for their cars etc, being vandalised and attracting massive insurance premiums with the potential for others to receive electric shocks from. Then of course we have the other high risk factor, and that is that when we have electric vehicles and the sales of ICE vehicles are banned, we'll all be at the power worker's mercy, and they will then have the power in their hands to hold the country to ransom. A couple of days of power cuts through strike action will cripple the entire infrastructure. 

No tax on charging personal EV or PHEV at work in UK. Previously employer had to ask for exemption, but changed to blanket no tax a couple of years ago.

In the GWN, it varies a lot for workplace vehicle charging.  It could be free charging (like for my neighbour I mentioned earlier), tax-free, market rate or outright disallowed (my workplace).

Most publicly accessible chargers require a membership card, which is essentially just another credit card to carry around.  Rates are typically market rate or discounted by government promotions.

[Specmaster]

Diesel is nasty shit. Needs to go.

 
The whole world moves on diesel so it's not going anywhere soon.

Some countries are certainly controlling its urban use while newer technology diesels come online just as they are controlling imports of any new diesel powered equipment to help reduce emissions.

Indeed it does. Interested to see how the next few decades play out on this front.

Yep its certainly true, my world moves on diesel  . I think you nailed it there, there will have to some major leaps taking place before they can seriously consider banning ICE transport. What are they going to do with all the world's ships then?

[Specmaster]

I went for the middle ground, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV 2016MY with the 2.0 engine. Bought it used, private owner and as it was registered before April 2017 it is zero road tax and no congestion charge. No practical way to charge at home but I can charge for free at work and that covers my 22 odd mile commute on electric only. It's at it's worst on a motorway fast run, about 40 MPG but does well on A roads and in town.
Loads of space for TE even with the seats up.

No form of an electric vehicle is an option for me or for most Brits as the vast majority of people are forced to use on street parking at home and even at work sometimes as provided parking spaces have become a taxable item (at least I think they are, I know it was mooted before I retired) and electric charging stations on residential roads I cannot that ever happening, especially as I have 3 neighbours now who have between them 12 or more cars and double park. I can also see such points becoming targets for thieves stealing electric for their cars etc, being vandalised and attracting massive insurance premiums with the potential for others to receive electric shocks from. Then of course we have the other high risk factor, and that is that when we have electric vehicles and the sales of ICE vehicles are banned, we'll all be at the power worker's mercy, and they will then have the power in their hands to hold the country to ransom. A couple of days of power cuts through strike action will cripple the entire infrastructure. 

No tax on charging personal EV or PHEV at work in UK. Previously employer had to ask for exemption, but changed to blanket no tax a couple of years ago.

No the tax I was referring to was not on charging but on company provided parking places at work, especially in large cities like London where there is not the space for that to happen, which will mean that chargeing at work will be reserved for the very selected few. Everyone else will still have to rely on public transport.

[DH7DN]

Tempting ...
Agilent 34401A for 350 Euro

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/agilent-keysight-34401a-digitalmultimeter/1815203242-168-9250

Indeed. Must. Resist. Already. Got. Four. Of. Them.

Five is a lucky number!     Spend your COVID-bucks wisely 

[tautech]

Diesel is nasty shit. Needs to go.

 
The whole world moves on diesel so it's not going anywhere soon.

Some countries are certainly controlling its urban use while newer technology diesels come online just as they are controlling imports of any new diesel powered equipment to help reduce emissions.

Indeed it does. Interested to see how the next few decades play out on this front.

Yep its certainly true, my world moves on diesel  . I think you nailed it there, there will have to some major leaps taking place before they can seriously consider banning ICE transport. What are they going to do with all the world's ships then?

Transport is just one part of fuel usage when most production and industry/construction runs on diesel too.
One might be horrified that our Larry Minors 13t digger can drink 200l/day working hard and it's tiny compared to those used in industry but put 100 guys on shovels for the same time and tell me which is the more efficient. 

Same for rural production that feeds the world....put ppl back there with hoes, sickles and scythes and watch the world starve !

[Specmaster]

I had another round of polishing on the Extech screen today and the same marks can still be seen under the right conditions, but the finished result is so much better now and is fully usable as it is.

The marks can generally only be seen if the light catches the screen at just the right angle, and I'm a little concerned, like AVGresponding that if I keep going to take out very deep scratches that it'll leave the screen so weak that it might be prone to cracking if pressure is placed upon it.

I might buy another tin of Brasso and have another quick go at it, but I'm terrified of taking it that stage to far and risk ruining this beast of a meter.

[AVGresponding]

I went for the middle ground, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV 2016MY with the 2.0 engine. Bought it used, private owner and as it was registered before April 2017 it is zero road tax and no congestion charge. No practical way to charge at home but I can charge for free at work and that covers my 22 odd mile commute on electric only. It's at it's worst on a motorway fast run, about 40 MPG but does well on A roads and in town.
Loads of space for TE even with the seats up.

Oooopsss...

  
https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.uk/cars/outlander-phev
Are you trying to point out a non existent spelling mistake or don't you like Mitsubishi?

I quite like (mostly older) Mitsi's, I was referring to them pulling out of the UK market, which is likely to make certain things problematic before long, despite what may well turn out to be empty, or even just plain impossible to fulfil, promises made.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/manufacturer-news/2020/07/28/mitsubishi-to-exit-uk-market

[med6753]

When a fail becomes a win.

Yesterday I showed the results of my attempt to clean the front panel of the Heath V-5 VTVM and the resulting fading of the graphics. I noticed today that the paint was now peeling and failing so I had to do something. Clear coat to the rescue. 2 quick coats. And it restored the contrast on the graphics. Double win.   

[Cerebus]

I've just pulled the trigger on an HP 53132A 225MHz Universal Counter that ought to cost me about £400 in total by the time I've paid VAT and clearance fees (It's coming from the US, I've just coughed up $448USD plus change). It hasn't got any of the fancy OCXO options but I'm not exactly short of OCXOs at the moment and the design of a board to substitute for the HP OCXO board isn't too onerous - there are already some designs out there.

Not as cheap-skate as I'd have liked (Keep quiet you lot in the back row seats) but most of them seem to go for more, a lot more if they've got any of the fancier timebase options - £600+ without fancy, £1000+ with, £1200 or more if they've got the 3GHz input as well (another relatively trivial add-on to make if I later find I need it). So I'm not feeling that I've let the side down too much.

Much through I love my TTI TF930 it is at heart a frequency counter, not a universal counter/timer and while doing the OCXO/GPSDO messing about I've found the lack of any decent time measurement facility has slowed me down a bit (no pun intended). The 53132A will do time measurements with 150ps resolution down to as low as 5ns and up to 100,000s. With that I can use the 53132A as an external instrument to qualify and characterise my GPSDO design rather than "marking my own homework" as I have been so far.

My difficulty has been not having had anything that can measure 1.000 000 000 seconds and be accurate on those last few digits representing nanoseconds to measure the phase error of my locally generated 1 PPS output. The TF930s resolution on that kind of measurement comes in at 20ns resolution for a 1 second aperture, 2ns for a 10 second aperture or 200ps for a 100 second aperture. The 53132A will better the TF930s 100 seconds best on a 1 second aperture and unlike the TF930 won't hide any errors in the 1 PPS signal by averaging it. The same story applies to the frequency realm, with the old TF930 having to do a lot of averaging to get enough resolution to allow me to get into the real nitty gritty.

Looks like my grip on the rim of this rabbit hole has got less firm. I'll see you all at the bottom.

Oh look, there seems to be some kind of sage looking Shifu rabbit down there. I wonder if he can tell me the exact time?

[med6753]

Looks like my grip on the rim of this rabbit hole has got less firm. I'll see you all at the bottom.

Oh look, there seems to be some kind of sage looking Shifu rabbit down there. I wonder if he can tell me the exact time?

Don't fight it. You know you're hooked.

[Cerebus]

Next step on the Heath V-5 VTVM rebuild. Strip down this rat's nest to bare chassis. Switches will be saved. Those 2 pink precision resistors lower right are OK. All the wiring and other passive components will be trashed.

Clearly built by a worshipper of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.



A blessing on his noodley appendages.

[Cerebus]

Yep its certainly true, my world moves on diesel  . I think you nailed it there, there will have to some major leaps taking place before they can seriously consider banning ICE transport. What are they going to do with all the world's ships then?

We (that is us here assembled) will be OK, we can use tea clippers.  Except for Med, he'll be fucked.

[Specmaster]

Yep its certainly true, my world moves on diesel  . I think you nailed it there, there will have to some major leaps taking place before they can seriously consider banning ICE transport. What are they going to do with all the world's ships then?

We (that is us here assembled) will be OK, we can use tea clippers.  Except for Med, he'll be fucked.

Not unless his coffee comes by ship 

[med6753]

Yep its certainly true, my world moves on diesel  . I think you nailed it there, there will have to some major leaps taking place before they can seriously consider banning ICE transport. What are they going to do with all the world's ships then?

We (that is us here assembled) will be OK, we can use tea clippers.  Except for Med, he'll be fucked.

Nah, move underwater and torpedo your arse. 

[25 CPS]

I've just pulled the trigger on an HP 53132A 225MHz Universal Counter that ought to cost me about £400 in total by the time I've paid VAT and clearance fees (It's coming from the US, I've just coughed up $448USD plus change). It hasn't got any of the fancy OCXO options but I'm not exactly short of OCXOs at the moment and the design of a board to substitute for the HP OCXO board isn't too onerous - there are already some designs out there.

Not as cheap-skate as I'd have liked (Keep quiet you lot in the back row seats) but most of them seem to go for more, a lot more if they've got any of the fancier timebase options - £600+ without fancy, £1000+ with, £1200 or more if they've got the 3GHz input as well (another relatively trivial add-on to make if I later find I need it). So I'm not feeling that I've let the side down too much.

Uh oh.  Spending real money on serious equipment?  You'd better atone by ordering something cheap from China on eBay or, better yet, Amazon ASAP.

Anyways, that counter sounds like a nice addition to your arsenal.  Has it arrived yet?

[mnementh]

I got around to taking a closer look at this the other day.

The theory of head-on collision damage is certainly valid.  However, on inspection I saw no further signs of such damage.  The broken part is inside the chassis, so I do not understand how an impact could have been focused here.  It could be my understanding is wrong in a freak crash.

Do note that the damaged LED lights do not support a crash.  That damage was from extracting the truggy from the flower bed by pulling backwards and having the light bar caught in the plant stems.  (Didn't your papa teach you anything?  Oh wait, I am papa in this case...)

When I inspected the affected parts, I noticed first thing that the screw used does not match the parts list.  This screw that sheared has a hex cap head or a torx head.  Most likely it is a torx head.  The one in the parts list has a Phillips head.  It is too small for any tools that I have (or is that an excuse to go tool shopping for more screwdrivers again), and starting to get too small for my eyes.  Unfortunately, the field of view with the camera macro lense is a bit too shallow in the photos I took.
(Attachment Link)
What can be easily seen is liberal use of CA around the screw head.  My theory, and feel free to debunk it, is the load path was changed by use of the CA glue.  With the strong glue, the load path became cup-screw-gear.  The normal load path would be directly cup-gear, and the screw is only to retain the gear in the cup.  If the screw was unable to handle the loads, since it was not intended to do so, then it sheared under torque.  It certainly looks possible when looking at the photo in the earlier post showing the broken end of the screw inside the end of the cup.

EDIT:  earlier post is this one:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3599403/#msg3599403

All that aside, I still need to fix the truggy.  The cup needed is not available for sale on its own. 

However, the differential cups are available.  The needed cup is 1 to 1.2 mm longer than the differential cup, shown sliding one into the other.  Looking at the wear marks on the cup from the driveshaft dog-bone, it looks like a shorter cup should not be a problem. 
(Attachment Link)
I would like to know what the tinker-dragon thinks about this as an alternate part:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32764836662.html?spm=a2g0o.store_pc_groupList.8148356.23.17666925MS3CKa
Is this worth trying, or did I miss something with this alternate?

The only way I can find the needed part, beside buying a whole truggy, is in an assembly like this (also comes in all black):
https://www.rc-helicopter-spare-parts-online.com/wltoys-12428-12427-12428a-12427a-12428b-12427b-12428c-12427c-rc-car-spare-parts-drive-assembly-front-green-p-30110.html
This is a website I am not familiar with (at least so far).  This assembly is a third of the price of the complete kit...

Tinker, tinker, tinker; so much for RTR (ready to race) ...

I'm not certain that the shaft end of the center cup has the same shaft end as the Left & Right outboard ones do. Buying those to fix the center joint is a gamble.

You're looking for the wrong part. Search for 12427 Front Gearbox or 12428 Front Gearbox and get the whole thing already assembled:

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=12428+front+gearbox&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Look at the pics; don't get any that don't show metal gears inside like this one:

https://www.amazon.ca/Tongina-WLtoys-Gearbox-Assembly-Fitting/dp/B08KGQ6VCX

I was trying to find you what you need somewhere closer than a month away by slow boat from China. Since you're already resigned to the wait, may as well get the part the easy way.

From what I've read, this is one of the larger WLToys vendors in China; if you want your head to  , just noodle around this site for a while and see just how deep the rabbit-hole really goes:

https://www.wltoysrc.com/home/6371-wltoys-12427-upgrade-parts-front-gearbox-op-kit.html

It was the entire gestalt of the thing that tells me it was a head-on collision; I've done it enough times I can see the entire geometry of the front of the car in my head. What most likely happened is when it hit, the front end tried to roll up in a ball, placing both compression and torsional load right on that joint. The gearcase and front of the frame-tub has enough give that the whole thing tried to twist upward & back, which it couldn't because of the dogbone captive in that cup. Ka-toink! went that little m2 screw, as it was the smallest piece of metal in the line of all that force.

As I've run over both of my cars with the other at speed many times, I doubt that LED got knocked loose from the PCB by a simple whack from a branch; much more likely it got broke loose by the impact and then pulled off by the branches afterwards.

Good hunting!

mnem
 

[Brumby]

I had another round of polishing on the Extech screen today and the same marks can still be seen under the right conditions, but the finished result is so much better now and is fully usable as it is.

The marks can generally only be seen if the light catches the screen at just the right angle, and I'm a little concerned, like AVGresponding that if I keep going to take out very deep scratches that it'll leave the screen so weak that it might be prone to cracking if pressure is placed upon it.

I might buy another tin of Brasso and have another quick go at it, but I'm terrified of taking it that stage to far and risk ruining this beast of a meter.

My suggestion is: STOP NOW.

How many times have we taken a reasonable situation and tried to make it just that little bit better - and stuffed things up?


Put ... the Brasso ... down ...... and step away.

[Cerebus]

Uh oh.  Spending real money on serious equipment?  You'd better atone by ordering something cheap from China on eBay or, better yet, Amazon ASAP.

Anyways, that counter sounds like a nice addition to your arsenal.  Has it arrived yet?

2 hours after pulling the trigger? I think not - USPS* and an ocean is involved. End of the month if I'm lucky.

I'm already eagerly drumming my fingers waiting for relatively cheap stuff from China to hit me. (ER20 Collet holder and collets, and a PCB from JLCPCB).

*Yes, I know that will attract groans, with justification, from some people but I had no choice, it was the only shipping option available and was wildly overpriced at that (best part of one hundred bucks).

[25 CPS]

Uh oh.  Spending real money on serious equipment?  You'd better atone by ordering something cheap from China on eBay or, better yet, Amazon ASAP.

Anyways, that counter sounds like a nice addition to your arsenal.  Has it arrived yet?

2 hours after pulling the trigger? I think not - USPS* and an ocean is involved. End of the month if I'm lucky.

I'm already eagerly drumming my fingers waiting for relatively cheap stuff from China to hit me. (ER20 Collet holder and collets, and a PCB from JLCPCB).

*Yes, I know that will attract groans, with justification, from some people but I had no choice, it was the only shipping option available and was wildly overpriced at that (best part of one hundred bucks).

Ah ok, I wasn't clear if you were posting after you ordered it or after it had arrived.

[duckduck]

Diesel is nasty shit. Needs to go.

 
The whole world moves on diesel so it's not going anywhere soon.

Some countries are certainly controlling its urban use while newer technology diesels come online just as they are controlling imports of any new diesel powered equipment to help reduce emissions.

Indeed it does. Interested to see how the next few decades play out on this front.

Yep its certainly true, my world moves on diesel  . I think you nailed it there, there will have to some major leaps taking place before they can seriously consider banning ICE transport. What are they going to do with all the world's ships then?

Most very large ships (tankers, cargo ships, bulkers, ROROs, etc.) run on bunker oil. This is the stuff that is one step (in fractional distillation) above asphalt. It must be heated in order to be fluid enough to be pumped. The engines are mostly supercharged two-stroke diesels (ignition is initiated by compression, not a spark plug). There has been a small amount of movement towards running ships on CNG. There has been a tiny amount of interest in using wind power to augment the ICE engines. One of the problems is that many big ships are leased and the owners don't give a flip about green power or fuel mileage, as those costs are borne by the lessees. Being as the cost of leasing a ship has more than doubled recently, there is even less incentive now. Perhaps when shipping cools down a bit in a few years there will be more progress in that direction.

EDIT: Ships have long lives, much longer than most passenger cars. Obviously, battery-powered ships is science fiction. I suspect that it will be decades before we see even 5% of ships powered by anything other than bunker oil.

[mansaxel]

Someone buy this for Mr Carlson please:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294260185864

A bit grubby, but a pristine display. A recap later, and it'll be good for another 40 years. Will he appreciate it?

I just turned off after having used another device, perhaps more to his liking. I also verified the -hp- with one of my 8060s. The 400H needs calibration and adjustment, and it is a bit complicated to measure a balanced output with a single-ended grounded instrument.

[ Specified attachment is not available ]

It is the Studer 169 recap saga. Today I did the master modules, perhaps 12 100µF 16V, 6 220µF 16V and 4 1000µF 16V. Old ones are still Frako, but here they look like they've leaked which I don't remember seeing before; I got a lot of brown gunk off the PCB with a drop of IPA.  Most caps naïvely measured OK, but the ESR has started to climb on many, and the bung is being worked out of the can on a few.

Of course I got bitten by a documentation error; one of the 1000µF caps is turned backwards on the component placement chart.  Had to retrace and measure my way to correct placement. Manual is corrected now.

The mixer goes out on a job this Friday, so I went through it in prep.

[bitseeker]

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.

Congratulations, Zucca, and thanks for stopping in. Looking forward to seeing the new lab (4x!).

[bitseeker]

My TEA story begins pretty much innocently...

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

I like "getting started" stories. That little one even has a leash/lead around the pole. How cute.

Welcome to the crazyTEA house, DH7DN!