Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Good delivery news for once.

Ordered bits from Scan on Sunday at 10:58. Arrived Monday at 09:40 via DPD. Under 24 hours on an order placed on a Sunday is amazing.

[syau]

@tautech, one of your pesky Siglents has infiltrated my TE collection...   

It came in disguised as an RS Pro:

Probably at higher than OEM cost. 

Now all you have to do is upgrade it to an X spec. 
Does the GUI say RSPro ?
Wonder if it will flash over as easy as OEM ?
You might need to pop tv84 a message for help.

I got an earlier module, only issue is I tend to plug red lead into the black jack  , other than that, no complain.

[bd139]

@tautech, one of your pesky Siglents has infiltrated my TE collection...   

It came in disguised as an RS Pro:

Did you snag that one then? I did consider it myself 

[AVGresponding]

@tautech, one of your pesky Siglents has infiltrated my TE collection...   

It came in disguised as an RS Pro:

Probably at higher than OEM cost. 

Now all you have to do is upgrade it to an X spec. 
Does the GUI say RSPro ?
Wonder if it will flash over as easy as OEM ?
You might need to pop tv84 a message for help.

£237 when you include the shipping. I was expecting to be outbid...   

It has yet to arrive, but it will be interesting to see how well it will respond to firmware tinkering.

Did you snag that one then? I did consider it myself 

I'm moderately annoyed that you didn't outbid me...   

Especially as I also bagged the other PSU he had listed for a penny under a bullseye, shipped. Another RS rebrand, this time of an Iso-Tech:

[AVGresponding]

The FLIR works, though the fact it has its own battery is quite annoying to me. I think I will move it on, if the Cat 61 is as good as I hope.

Here's a pic of the heat distribution on my tv/monitor, the gradient isn't huge, the cold bits are about 2.5°C lower than the hotspots.

[Saskia]

Let me know as I might have a mild interest

[Robert763]

Road trip! Arrange to meet someplace halfway for each. Just be careful and don't get any hernias. 

Would that be an all-transistor hernia?   7603  Manual says 30lbs without the plug-ins.    Should be fine as long as I lift it correctly.   

More concerned about leaving the dogs alone.    We lost our doggy day care.  Working on training up a new dog sitter.   Our Great Dane is 'special' and will only permit special people near her.

ABRB tells me  324mil  and 6hr 19min  round trip to Rugby Services, which has a bank of brand new rapid chargers.   The return route includes a stop at an old unreliable DBT charger in Wrexham.  I wouldn't risk that but there are alternates that would add a few minutes to the trip home.

Our rescued dog (shepard cross) can't be home alone but likes road trips.  I might be going to the Finningly ARS car boot on the 25th DN8 5SX but that's more than half way for you.
Not much I want to visit in the middle.

[Andrew_Debbie]

Our rescued dog (shepard cross) can't be home alone but likes road trips.  I might be going to the Finningly ARS car boot on the 25th DN8 5SX but that's more than half way for you.
Not much I want to visit in the middle.

Thank you for the offer, but I will have to pass.   Too far.     Google Maps says that is also the home of the Trolly Bus mueseum.     If we can ever find a compatible dog sitter . . .

[mnementh]

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.   

Yeah, I saw that; figured odds are not every last one is like that. If it is, I'll return the damned thing as defective until I get one that isn't. Last chain I cracked for the eBike build I did in my vise with a socket and 2mm hex driver bit. That thing hopefully has to be better than that. 

I mean, I could be a total douche-puppet and use the freewheel socket, and then return it all for the defective chain-cracker... 

mnem
Yeah, right... imagine that...

[Cerebus]

Wasn't someone looking for a good mini belt sander?

https://www.joke-technology.com/3d-shop/en/products-3d-onlineshop/grinding-and-polishing-devices/belt-grinder/

(without drive and control unit)

Ouch  Think I will stick to my Air driven powerfile thanks think I paid $40'ish AUD 

Yeah, I can't tell if that site is "joke technology" or Joke-Technology. Their prices certainly are, my first reaction is "Yer 'aving a laugh, ain't yer mate?"^*.

^* As I've pointed out before, for the benefit of our overseas friends, this is local Cockney Ritual Fighting Patois to ascertain whether the other party was in fact making a joke in dangerously poor taste or did actually intend offence ("Taking me for a mug.") before rendering the locally accepted form of correction for bad manners (known variously around the country as the Stepney two-step, Hackney handshake, the Glasgow nod, etc.). 

[Cerebus]

... and the knobs are gone.

Just about describes how I feel most mornings. 

[mnementh]

"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...

Just change the texas drawl to a french accent; other than that, it is the same conversation here!

Oh, hey-all no!!! No Tejas drawl in our home; her accent, when she wants to exhibit it... (the way she can make it appear on a whim is a scary talent, I tell you what ), is Cajun as thick as molasses and twice as sweet, shaah!

And my drawl, while sometimes applied extra thick due to decades in Frijole and Taco country, is deepest darkest Arkansas barely outta the swamp, learnt from muh grand-dad.

mnem

[Cerebus]

Good delivery news for once.

Ordered bits from Scan on Sunday at 10:58. Arrived Monday at 09:40 via DPD. Under 24 hours on an order placed on a Sunday is amazing.

[Bud]

Is it just me or does it seem this place is absent of Soccer news 

Will the Poms win Wimbledon or a Soccer championship in the next 50 years and which will be first 

Did they fall on grass and rolled "in pain" more often than other teams? It is impossible these days to 'enjoy' watching soccer because of this bullshit interrupting the game every minute. This has become ridiculous.

[Cerebus]

"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...

Just change the texas drawl to a french accent; other than that, it is the same conversation here!

I'd debate whether that was a French accent. I can understand Les Grenouilles chattering away in their native language and accents just fine^*, I can't make out a word of what a Francophone Canadian is saying. 

^* Obviously as an Englishman when actually in front of the French, by convention I have to pretend that I can't, and the French return the compliment. This way we both can pretend that we can't understand what we're respectively saying about each other and this is how we have managed to avoid a war with each other since 1815. 

[mnementh]

Is it just me or does it seem this place is absent of Soccer news 

Is it just me that I don't give a shit? 

It has Zero to do with giving a Poo and all to do with gently prodding those that might 

Trouble maker. 

I'm all out of shits to give... but here's a rat's ass just for you, med...



mnem
 

[Cerebus]

... Just when you thought the tone couldn't get lower.

[Kosmic]

On the same day I went in for surgery my Mother was admitted to the hospital for various aliments. Obviously due to my post surgical recovery I was unable to travel to Colorado to visit her but I did speak with her on a daily basis. For some reason which her doctors could not explain she started to rapidly go downhill. The last I was able to speak with her was this past Wednesday and she was so incoherent that I could hardly understand her. The last time my Brothers on scene were able to talk with her was this past Thursday.

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 Med. Never fun to lose someone 

[mnementh]

... Just when you thought the tone couldn't get lower.

pffft. Yer just annoyed you didn't think of it first.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

Oh no, I always thought that I was the one most likely to lower the tone in any conversation (excepting one Ms. Rayna Tullet, formerly of Wandsworth, and one Mark Fitchett, formerly of Uxbridge) but I am forced to concede the crown to you Mnem. 

[Cerebus]

On the subject of "Foot the ball". One can guess how much I care by the fact that the I'm much more concerned that the absence of football and tennis from the Television means that tonight "Only Connect"^* and "University Challenge" return to our screens.

^* For the non-Brits: A quiz show that after its first season received complaints that its use of Greek letters to designate the questions that contestants picked next was too abstruse. They acknowledged this and in response changed to Egyptian hieroglyphs.

If I have to explain University Challenge to anyone, a show that's been running since 1962 and, until the advent of Only Connect, was generally regarded as the hardest quiz on TV anywhere then I really don't know quite what insult I'd have to formulate for the questioner. My guess is that, whatever it was, they probably wouldn't understand it. 

[Cerebus]

From the "shooting yourself in the foot" department:

With the breadboarded GPSDO prototype the EFC drive was rather noisy. So I put a little passive filter into the signal path. When I span up the PCB that I've labelled the "OCXO Test Fixture"  on which I planned to test the analogue side properly I included the filter on the PCB.

When yesterday I connected up the OXCO test fixture PCB to the digital bit of the GPSDO prototype all hell broke loose. The EFC was behaving erratically and even getting the whole thing to lock was a problem. Today I desoldered all the filter components from the board and stuck a zero ohm resistor in their place. The GPSDO has just locked to within 22 ppb within one second and is steadily improving as it counts up through longer and longer control loop time constants (currently 0.056 ppb error at tau=256 seconds).

Moral of the story: Don't try and fix layout problems by adding more circuitry, fix the layout problems by fixing the layout problems!

I should have known better. I did, but succumbed to the temptation of the 'quick fix'. I then compounded my sins by making the quick fix part of the formal design. 

[mnementh]

Oh no, I always thought that I was the one most likely to lower the tone in any conversation (excepting one Ms. Rayna Tullet, formerly of Wandsworth, and one Mark Fitchett, formerly of Uxbridge) but I am forced to concede the crown to you mnem. 

Keep trying; you'll get there.

Tho honestly... for lowering the bar, that jiggly rat booty hardly even makes a blip on the RADAR; not even in the top 10 in here (which is pretty tame for sure), and I survived modding in Dominion Chat so have seen a lot worse. 

mnem
This space For Rent.

[mnementh]

On the subject of "Foot the ball". One can guess how much I care by the fact that the I'm much more concerned that the absence of football and tennis from the Television means that tonight "Only Connect"^* and "University Challenge" return to our screens.

^* For the non-Brits: A quiz show that after its first season received complaints that its use of Greek letters to designate the questions that contestants picked next was too abstruse. They acknowledged this and in response changed to Egyptian hieroglyphs.

If I have to explain University Challenge to anyone, a show that's been running since 1962 and, until the advent of Only Connect, was generally regarded as the hardest quiz on TV anywhere then I really don't know quite what insult I'd have to formulate for the questioner. My guess is that, whatever it was, they probably wouldn't understand it. 

sarchasm sar·chasm

/ˈsärˌkazəm/

noun: sarchasm

That enormous gulf between your pithy remark and the troglodyte who just. doesn't. get it.

"I tried to put his idiocy into context, but my attempt was lost in the sarchasm."

mnem
Apologies to any actual troglodytes I may have offended with this remark; really, you should know better.

[mnementh]

From the "shooting yourself in the foot" department:

With the breadboarded GPSDO prototype the EFC drive was rather noisy. So I put a little passive filter into the signal path. When I span up the PCB that I've labelled the "OCXO Test Fixture"  on which I planned to test the analogue side properly I included the filter on the PCB.

When yesterday I connected up the OXCO test fixture PCB to the digital bit of the GPSDO prototype all hell broke loose. The EFC was behaving erratically and even getting the whole thing to lock was a problem. Today I desoldered all the filter components from the board and stuck a zero ohm resistor in their place. The GPSDO has just locked to within 22 ppb within one second and is steadily improving as it counts up through longer and longer control loop time constants (currently 0.056 ppb error at tau=256 seconds).

Moral of the story: Don't try and fix layout problems by adding more circuitry, fix the layout problems by fixing the layout problems!

I should have known better. I did, but succumbed to the temptation of the 'quick fix'. I then compounded my sins by making the quick fix part of the formal design. 

We've never seen that before... 

mnem
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