Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Nice score @factory... I do love me some vintage iron like that!   

Looks like you've already made good headway... Looking forward to the finished product!

mnem
on the road again...

[factory]

McBryce is 100% correct, it is indeed a 15/60 Wolsey, god knows I've spent enough time working on them and others from the same group, i.e, Morris Oxford and the Austin A60, the give away was the scuttle that the person is leaning on 

. 

We're on the road again, looking at properties.

When I first posted that pic, my wife looked over my shoulder and said "That's just wrong..."

Now I'm finally catching up on the thread and I'm like:

"Hey baby... You remember that picture from the other day? We've just had 3 pages of conversation over what the make and model of car in the picture is."

"What... Not over how wrong that is...? I grew up with those books from my grandmother... "

"No, we're pretty sure it's a real car; just trying to figure out the make and model."

"Y'all are such nerds..."   

mnem
in the interest of domestic tranquility, I did not relate the discussion aboot Lucas or which exact motor was in the car...

They did a good job altering that book. 



David

[BU508A]

What are those two glass thingies on this board?

[med6753]

What you're doing there is probably a wise idea for any Heathkits anyway. I've seen a lot of criminal builds in my time 

Edit: talking of which this turned up in my search. It has extra holes  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234084118035

My Father did an excellent job when the kit was originally built. It's me that sort of made a mess of things over the years replacing parts. So this rebuild is an atonement for my past sins.  Besides, I needed a project and a diversion from the Type 547 which continues to mock me on a daily basis. 

Despite what has happen here today I still want to recognize this. I think it's a freaking riot.  Thanks. 

Feeling a little numb right now. 

[med6753]

Factory, I've used HP 180A's before at IBM. They are decent scopes and yes, they do trigger.

[factory]

What are those two glass thingies on this board?

Neon voltage reference tubes, they are supposed to get quite unreliable with age. Here is the PSU board from the cabinet model 180A I have, still haven't got round to uninstalling that board and now that scope is half buried under over stuff. 


David

[bd139]

What are those two glass thingies on this board?

I wondered this as well. Turns out they aren't in the service manual for the later versions. Some head scratching later and some digging around and I Found a schematic for an older one. They are neons and are used as voltage references for the diff pairs on the 100v and -100v lines.

Edit: factory beat me to it 

[URI]

Though mostly lurking around here the past last months for some reasons, I'd like to express my condolences to you, med.

[tautech]

This ones on Tautech for poking my completionism/collector mode  #6 Aussie made Stanley/Falcon eBay auction: #284354856127 not to hotly contested which was nice.

Bit of TLC will be needed but looks serviceable

You just need the #7 to round out the collection then.

Using that logic I will also then need a #8 

And a 3 and 3 1/2 ! 

[factory]

Factory, I've used HP 180A's before at IBM. They are decent scopes and yes, they do trigger.

It's just some bad reputation from some of the older hp scopes that never seems to get forgotten, some say it keeps the prices down. Mine currently triggers just as badly as the Fluke 123 did at work last week.

Nice post 

Those Sprague 109D's are bastards. I've seen a couple actually explode quite violently with a bang and leave a hole in the side!

Edit: found a picture of one of the sods in my archive:

Thankfully hp have added resistors in series with the supply to those tants. 

The military manual for the Navy (AN/USM-281A) version of the 180A, is far better then the crap scanned by Agilent, I have acquired an original hp manual from 1968 as well.

Volume one;
http://www.virhistory.com/navy/manua...9-125-0110.pdf

Volume two;
http://www.virhistory.com/navy/manua...9-125-0120.pdf

Edit: the 180C/D & 183A use a completely different PSU board with zener diode references, I'm guessing the 180C/D is the manual BD found.

David

[factory]

On the eBay front, I was just pipped at the last second on that Fluke 99B last night, snipped at 5seconds to go and was winning and at the last second,  someone responded with a bid just £2 higher, well done to them. On the plus side I don't have to do that long drive now, just as well, as I also managed to chuck out my Philips electric shaver accidentally when clearing my bench the other day, so now I have to buy another 

Well it wasn't me, I've really been put off Fluke scopemeters again after using the one at work last week, why couldn't they have sent one of the Tek CRO's for calibration too. 
Never replied to the email from Stewarts requesting my phone number either.
Also enquired about another brand of battery powered scope on ePay and got no response from the seller, if they had just shown it working as they state it is, I would have bought it. 

David

[Specmaster]

On the eBay front, I was just pipped at the last second on that Fluke 99B last night, snipped at 5seconds to go and was winning and at the last second,  someone responded with a bid just £2 higher, well done to them. On the plus side I don't have to do that long drive now, just as well, as I also managed to chuck out my Philips electric shaver accidentally when clearing my bench the other day, so now I have to buy another 

Gah hate that. They might have gone significantly higher but your bid only popped £2 on it. Don't sweat it.

Anyway latest acquisition to go along side the 8060A and the 25...

Thats a nice one, you're getting a good collection of Flukes there for sure. I checked on the bidding history on that 99B, the winner won with their first attempt, it's possible that they did put a higher bid, but we will never know. Equally though, if I'd been a second later at 4 seconds to go, my bid should have won it because their bid was literally on the last second and was just patting myself on the back for winning. Win some, lose some 

[Saskia]

@Papa Smurf

just got in and read the news.
I am sorry to hear that, and can only offer my condolences. May she rest in peace.

[Specmaster]

@factory
Yes, C327 and C328 most certainly have been leaking, looking at the connections.

[Specmaster]

On the eBay front, I was just pipped at the last second on that Fluke 99B last night, snipped at 5seconds to go and was winning and at the last second,  someone responded with a bid just £2 higher, well done to them. On the plus side I don't have to do that long drive now, just as well, as I also managed to chuck out my Philips electric shaver accidentally when clearing my bench the other day, so now I have to buy another 

Well it wasn't me, I've really been put off Fluke scopemeters again after using the one at work last week, why couldn't they have sent one of the Tek CRO's for calibration too. 
Never replied to the email from Stewarts requesting my phone number either.
Also enquired about another brand of battery powered scope on ePay and got no response from the seller, if they had just shown it working as they state it is, I would have bought it. 

David

I did reply to Stewarts email and gave them my phone number. They never even phoned me and I took the attitude that if they can't be arsed to phone me then they don't the sale either. I also have to say that they just confirmed my original feeling about them, it amazes me that they are still in business with that level of customer service. I won't be approaching them again in a hurry, thats for sure.

[bd139]

Leave a Google review. Job done.

[GreyWoolfe]

I got that dreaded phone call. She passed this morning. August 3rd would have been her 90th birthday. Her wishes were no funeral.   

My condolences too.

The only good thing is that with elderly parents one is expecting it. My mother died at 94 and the only real surprise was that she'd actually gone and done it - she seemed indestructible. My father died suddenly overnight when I was  in my early twenties, I really didn't know how to react to that at the time, it was beyond my experience and that of my closer friends too. At least when you get to our respective ages you've had a bit of practice at losing people. It's still a wrench though.

Keep your pecker up. Actually, don't do that, you'll just get yourself into more trouble. 

Sorry to hear that Med.  Thankfully, you had a lot of years with her.  Cerebus, I feel you.  Lost my mother at 23 after a 9 year fight with cancer.  Lost my dad at 35.  I had my practice way too early.  Last was a colleague who became a dear friend.  Died 3 years ago after knowing and working with him for 14 years.  Cried like a baby in Mrs GreyWoolfe's arms.  Still a wrench and it never gets easier. 

[Specmaster]

Leave a Google review. Job done.

Thats an idea, but I can't find any links for Googles Reviews. I suppose it's just possible that maybe something has happened to prevent them from calling me back, and I may be doing them a disservice if I left a bad review, if that was the case 

[mnementh]

Currently in the driveway at the strangest little property... A perfectly normal suburban red brick bungalow... Located on 10 acres in the middle of working farm country, literally out in the boonies past Newmarket, ON. 

mnem
 

[Brumby]

Med - sorry to hear your latest news.  My deepest condolences.

It's bad enough when you know the inevitable is close - as it was with my mother - but when it comes suddenly, it is quite the shock.

[beanflying]

This ones on Tautech for poking my completionism/collector mode  #6 Aussie made Stanley/Falcon eBay auction: #284354856127 not to hotly contested which was nice.

Bit of TLC will be needed but looks serviceable

You just need the #7 to round out the collection then.

Using that logic I will also then need a #8 

And a 3 and 3 1/2 ! 

More likely a 4 1/2 long before those wee toys 

[cyclin_al]

Often true but not always. Last time I had to upgrade internet, the technician originally came from Iran and had studied in engineering. He unfortunately couldn't work in engineering over here because his formation was probably not recognized and it's a really protected field. Still, he was impressed with my TEA collection and we actually had a chat about Oscilloscope 

Probably just the North American protectionism thing kicking in, especially with respect to a country that your southern cousins like to cast as the devil incarnate. Iran, or if you prefer Persia, has always had great respect for scholarship and it shows in the quality of their education system and the quality of their graduates. If your Iranian engineer was anything like the Iranian educated folks I've known he was probably better qualified than someone with the ostensibly equivalent qualification from a local institution.

It's a testament to the ingrained Iranian respect for learning that even after the Mad Mullahs took over in Iran the education system remained intact and largely unharmed (It had its hiccups, but that's to be expected). Imagine what would happen to the universities here in the West if the equivalent stripe of Christian fundamentalists took over here. You don't have to imagine hard, because in some places you can see it happening without the the fundamentalists rising to the level of absolute power that the fundamentalists did in Iran.

Also: Persian food is delicious! If you do get hold of an Iranian, get them to cook you their mum's recipe for Dhansak, you will not be disappointed.

However, don't leave Persian blokes alone with your women - I'm looking at you Manek Dubash^*. 

^* As I have mentioned before, Manek is the kind of man who would regularly Google himself, so I fully expect he'll see this in the fullness of time, even though he's not a member here.

The engineering order is really powerful over here. For most (if not all) engineer positions you must be a member of the order. They tried for many years to take control of software engineering but always failed.

Heads up, they are still trying....

Also, keep an eye on certain areas that are regulated at the federal level and what the engineering orders are up to on that.
For those who do not know, engineering is regulated at the provincial level in the GWN.

 

[cyclin_al]

Yeah... fortunately, I have a parts mule bike with a genuine Shimano 6-gear freewheel cluster, should be a easy swap. Found a full kit with 2 spline tools, chain whip, crank press and chain-cracker for CAD$21 (~US$17) on Amazon to take the misery out of the job; I'd be a fool not to, I think.

Tool quality will be cheapest possible China-direct of course... but I've done this job with a 3DP part before, so not too worried. Kit should survive the half-dozen times I'm likely to use it before I check out.

According to the amazon photo, the chain tool comes with the pin pre-bent...
That might be going a bit too cheap? 

Then again, the chain-cracker is not needed for what you are up against.   

[cyclin_al]

The last cable guy I had here had no clue as what my stuff was. 

Years ago one of my sons had an auto sparky over who was trying to show off with his "knowledge" and started talking about an oscilloscope, expecting to befuddle my son.

However the shoe ended up on the other foot when my son not only knew what he was talking about, but that we had one in the house.  Seems the sparky was taken aback - significantly.

.... and I missed it.

Like the people sent out by my "Internet Service Provider" back when I had ADSL.
The contractor came out, checked, using an ordinary ADSL modem that it wasn't connecting.
Said "he had to go back & talk to the ISP, who would get back to me".

"Crickets" for about a week, then rang the ISP & nagged them-------they promised to send a bloke out to follow things up.

The same bloke turned up, rubbed his beard, & said he would go get the "Da Dum!!" TDR out of his car.
Looking very scientific, he hung it across the line, mumbled something about having to "pass it to Telstra".

I could not for the life of me see why, if the thing was in the car, he didn't use it the first time!

He really treated the TDR as if it was "the wonder of the age"-------I didn't have the heart to tell him the old PMG Dept used them, in the form of the old PET (Pulse Echo Tester) back in the 1960s!

Further down the rabbit hole, eventually after much more time, Telstra became involved, a tech came out, said the lead in from the pit was faulty & needed replacement, but that "had to be done by a team of contractors".

We had to go away for a few weeks, so were concerned about that, but when Telstra rang us to confirm a date for a visit from the contractors, they said they wouldn't need us to be home.

Coming home, didn't seem to be any sign of disturbance of the ground, so we assumed that the cable had just been replaced, retaining the old conduit.
This was 2012.

All seemed well, but a while down the track, the ADSL failed & the phone became noisy, so I bypassed the ISP & rang Telstra.

The "tech" came out, fiddled in the pit, "let slip" that the leadin hadn't been changed, reterminated a few dodgy connections.
The phone noise dropped to a relatively low level, the ADSL came back, with reduced performance, the tech went away satified.

We weren't but we decided to "live with it"

Over the next few years, we had 2-3 phone fails eacn year, & I became pretty convinced we had an intermittent fault in the leadin cable.
The techs varied in competence around a pretty poor base line.

Ultimately, in 2019, we had become eligible for connection to NBN "Fibre to the curb", so I thought I would have to get the lead in problem sorted "once & for all".

Amazingly, this time they sent someone who knew what he was doing.
He agreed that it was a faulty lead in cable, so he pulled a new cable through the conduit, taking about 30 minutes max.

No more lead in problem!
The bloke in 2012 could have done the same thing, if he had an ounce of competence, as could the others.

What gripes me, is that I could have done it myself, but I'm not allowed to!

This sounds exactly like my story, except the story started in 2013 and the "ultimately in 2019" has not yet occurred here... still waiting.
One tech has actually said the lead-in cable needs to be replaced, but he did not have the authority to order it done.

[cyclin_al]

@med6753.

My sincere condolences to you med, I echo all the sentiments the others have already expressed. Now go and finish the Heathkit and make a brilliant job of it in memory of your Mother and Father now, do them both proud

My condolences Mike.  There is no way I could express it any better than @spec already did!