Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Zoli]

BD do you mean JLCPCB can do round/circular boards ??
.. or any arbitrary shape  ? I suppose they charge through the roof for non-rectangular boards no ?
How do they price this service ? Requires a supplement I guess !

A couple of my finished PCB's from JLCPCB; no extra charges for the shape or colour, only for the ENIG finishing.
Green: update for a desk lamp;
Black: precision reference;
White: torture device(xmas tree-top LED toy) .

[tggzzz]

BD do you mean JLCPCB can do round/circular boards ??
.. or any arbitrary shape  ? I suppose they charge through the roof for non-rectangular boards no ?
How do they price this service ? Requires a supplement I guess !

I got DirtyPCBs to put two diagonally on a 50mm*50mm board. No extra charge for that "figure of eight"

[tggzzz]

Nothing like a food bargain as well. You will find me regularly in Asda just before closing. Got me 500g 5% mince for today’s dinner yesterday for 20p.

Looking for "yellow labels" has several advantges apart from cost:

• speed: fewer things to look at, fewer choices to make
• serendipity: you look at things you wouldn't normally see, maybe even liking them so much you buy them again

Thats much the same thing with that app as well, you get no guarantees as to what you will be given, apart the approx value is going to 3 to 4 times the price paid. On one occasion, I grabbed a bargain from Gregg's and was given 2 bags for the price of 1. Simply stick what you can't eat that day in the freezer, job done.

I don't have a "smart"phone. My daughter has tried such things with sushi; the result was only "OK".

[Andrew_Debbie]

They cut any shapes AFAIK. Never tried!

They might charge extra.  I've was charged for a board that had too many 'slots' 


As far as I can tell it is entirely random if they charge you or not.   

[Specmaster]

Nothing like a food bargain as well. You will find me regularly in Asda just before closing. Got me 500g 5% mince for today’s dinner yesterday for 20p.

Looking for "yellow labels" has several advantges apart from cost:

• speed: fewer things to look at, fewer choices to make
• serendipity: you look at things you wouldn't normally see, maybe even liking them so much you buy them again

Thats much the same thing with that app as well, you get no guarantees as to what you will be given, apart the approx value is going to 3 to 4 times the price paid. On one occasion, I grabbed a bargain from Gregg's and was given 2 bags for the price of 1. Simply stick what you can't eat that day in the freezer, job done.

I don't have a "smart"phone. My daughter has tried such things with sushi; the result was only "OK".

Personally, I wouldn't go near sushi. I've had excellent results with Gregg's and also Country Bakers, the latter gave my first taste of sourdough bread and other specialities 

[Cerebus]

BD do you mean JLCPCB can do round/circular boards ??
.. or any arbitrary shape  ? I suppose they charge through the roof for non-rectangular boards no ?
How do they price this service ? Requires a supplement I guess !

Nope, nothing special needs to be done, no supplemental charges, just put whatever shape you like in your outline layer and the CNC router that cuts out all the board outlines will take care of it. The only limitation is that you want to aim for a shape that a 1mm router bit can cut out, they won't load a smaller bit than that into the router for any of the cheap services. I put 3mm radiused corners on my last board, just 'cause I like them like that - no problem, no questions, no extra charges, they just turned up matching the outline on the gerbers.



You can see a tiny bit of wander where the circumference of the edge of router bit shows up.

[tggzzz]

Nothing like a food bargain as well. You will find me regularly in Asda just before closing. Got me 500g 5% mince for today’s dinner yesterday for 20p.

Looking for "yellow labels" has several advantges apart from cost:

• speed: fewer things to look at, fewer choices to make
• serendipity: you look at things you wouldn't normally see, maybe even liking them so much you buy them again

Thats much the same thing with that app as well, you get no guarantees as to what you will be given, apart the approx value is going to 3 to 4 times the price paid. On one occasion, I grabbed a bargain from Gregg's and was given 2 bags for the price of 1. Simply stick what you can't eat that day in the freezer, job done.

I don't have a "smart"phone. My daughter has tried such things with sushi; the result was only "OK".

Personally, I wouldn't go near sushi. I've had excellent results with Gregg's and also Country Bakers, the latter gave my first taste of sourdough bread and other specialities 

You do have to be careful with sushi, e.g. avoiding places with low throughput.

Personally I wouldn't go near Greggs It is almost the definition of unhealthy overprocessed food consumables.

[Cerebus]

Personally I wouldn't go near Greggs It is almost the definition of unhealthy overprocessed food consumables.

There was almost certainly a branch of Alimenti Greggarii right next to the entrance to the Circus Maximus. And no doubt some chap called S.M.G. Fodere wandering around the crowd with a tray of sausages around his neck.

[med6753]

While waiting for the vertical output transistors to show up decided to go ahead and replace R1118 (320/5W). Replaced with 310/5W + 10/5W on a terminal strip.



Yep, old one kaput.

[Cerebus]

They cut any shapes AFAIK. Never tried!

They might charge extra.  I've was charged for a board that had too many 'slots' 


As far as I can tell it is entirely random if they charge you or not.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that it was done automatically, and was based on the number of 'cuts' some piece of software finds in the gerbers. If you have, say, more than 10 'cut a line from x₁y₁ to x₂y₂' commands in the file you get charged, if you have a single 'cut a polyline from x₁y₁ to x₂y₂ to ... x₂₀y₂₀' you don't get charged.

[Cubdriver]

While waiting for the vertical output transistors to show up decided to go ahead and replace R1118 (320/5W). Replaced with 310/5W + 10/5W on a terminal strip.



Yep, old one kaput.

Yeah, that aneurysm doesn't look very healthy.

-Pat

[Robert763]

A modern HP unicorn
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274887902216?
Unforuntl broken and probably not fixable 
You can get an exchange though
www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/E2310-69201

[AVGresponding]

Quick update.

Tek 475. Spoke to the seller who's response was basically "you're probably holding it wrong"  .

Will you be revealing the ebay seller name, so that we can give him a "Patronising Dickhead" award?

[mnementh]

Don't piss off French farmers: 

Yes that's what they do usually, I love it ! At least they have some balls. They gotta fight with the arms they have a their disposal !
When the milk producers were  fighting for decent prices, they would spill tons of milk instead of manure.
When fruit producers were pissed, they would fill Paris with their tractors to block the traffic in key places, and install booths were they would give away their fruits to people in the street.. protesting that theyt were getting so low prices from the super market industry, literally losing money with, they are literally better off given their fruits away than selling them.. so they do just that !    At least the stuff is not wasted ! 
At other times, they organize a convoy of hundreds of big tractors and they block the traffic on the highway, driving on both lanes at snail pace.

You gotta love these people, at least they move their ass and freaking do something instead of just moaning all the time  but do nothing like most people.

However Tautech your intention was probably just to fuel an old fire which is not very charitable of you ! Bad Tautech, bad Tautech !! 

Sadly, this probably was not farmers protesting, but rather part of a recent wave of protests against the latest wave of COVID lockdowns in France. Looking at other videos of these protests, I actually saw MAGA hats... 

Hardly shocking... shit is, after all, their favorite medium.

mnem
“Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity.” ~attributed to Einstein

PPS: I really do hope I am wrong. I think.

[dl6lr]

They cut any shapes AFAIK. Never tried!

Can confirm they do.

Bernd

[mnementh]

Actually not this time Vince as this time I believe this ^ was addressing French Gubbermint plans to misguidedly ban Glyphosate the most widely used and most highly scrutinized herbicide ever produced with 40+ years of proven performance and safety..........which in turn gives the dwagon a chance to get on his soapbox for another anti Roundup rant. 

Come on; it's fucking poison. Poison so potent they literally have to genetically modify the food plants it is sprayed on to keep it from killing them too. 

Nothing has been proven. Monsanto has spent millions of dollars buying politicians to torpedo every proposed study with any clinical standards whatsoever since approval was pushed through based entirely on their own studies declaring it "safe". These are facts; a matter of public record. Ifni knows how much they've spent in dark money to ensure this doesn't change.

If there wasn't something to the claims linking it to lymphoma and the meteoric rise in autism over the last 30 years, why has Monsanto spent so much money making sure it cannot be proven? You'd think they would welcome the exoneration.

Just as important as what hasn't been proven is the reasons why it hasn't been proven; it's as true now as when Deep Throat (supposedly) said it while I was still a baby: "Follow the money."

I'm done now. No further comment.

mnem

[mnementh]

Geez, nothing like tossing a red cape in front of the dragon and daring him not to go through it.    I just might avoid this thread for the next few days. 

Let's see ! Maybe he will want to behave, just for the sake of proving us wrong ! 

Dragon, be strong... resist the temptation... you can  resist sugar for your diet, I am sure you can resist your natural instinct for wars as well ! Give it a try ! 

Parts for the Type 547 should finally get delivered. I hope by the end of today having it 99% functional. 

That definitely excites me more than drinking round-up...

I've said all I'm going to say on the subject.

mnem
*toddles off to do some packing for a while*

[Robert763]

Who wanted a LCD 'scope?
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203537268248?

[mnementh]

As a first step we could try to stop dumping 1.300.000.000 metric tons of food every year.

That would affect some megacorporation's profitability. We cannot have that.

mnem
 

[Neomys Sapiens]

A modern HP unicorn
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274887902216?
Unforuntl broken and probably not fixable 
You can get an exchange though
www.keysight.com/my/partDetail/E2310-69201

The VFD questions on Tek and HP devices as well as the various LCD problems made me wonder, if and when someone with good knowledge and connections and located in a region with low labour cost will open a service for that.
Like - send in your broken display and get one made -.

It seemed to work (mostly) with PCBs, so the combined miracles of automation and globalisation could be brought to work here too!

[mnementh]

Locally (10-15km away) some of the small Bee Keepers lost a total of over 60 hives due to one local Potato farmer doing the wrong thing.

Without bees we're fucked.

No, without bees the entire planet becomes locked into the Bayer-Monsanto monopoly's supply chain of chemicals and seed grains which are produced in a closed ecosystem. You might suspect that maybe killing off all the bees isn't entirely an accident...? 

You think they can't possibly be that evil...? Look at what their PACs have done to family farms in India that were once handed down from one generation to the next for centuries... they made them into share-croppers on their own land. And now look at the associated suicides, in a culture that sees suicide as an unforgivable sin.

mnem
We've been warning you all about this for literally decades. Trump didn't make that any less important.

[mnementh]

Who wanted a LCD 'scope?
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203537268248?

Dang... 100 quid...? Even I would buy that just to see what makes it tick...

mnem
 

[Vince]

Sadly, this probably was not farmers protesting, but rather part of a recent wave of protests against the latest wave of COVID lockdowns in France. Looking at other videos of these protests, I actually saw MAGA hats... 

Was talking about the first videos of course ! Didn't watch the second one which indeed seems more recent and related to COVID stuff.

Hardly shocking... shit is, after all, their favorite medium.

Still tastes better and more useful than Marmite !   

[mnementh]

Tip:  you can bake these packets in the oven to recharge (dry) them, to be used again or after a humid period.  Just not too hot to burn the paper packet.

105ºC for 24 hours, in an electric oven. The latter ought to be obvious but it took some years to dawn on me that drying things out in an oven that produces "water of combustion" is a little counter productive.

I recently curb-scored a food dehydrator for this very purpose... to dry printer filament and the associated dessicant packs used in storage. Y'all will likely see a post of the teardown/repair once the dust settles after our move.

mnem
 

[Vince]

JLCPCB : thanks people for your feedback ! 

Wow so you can get any shape routed free of charge, I honestly would never have believed it.. PCB manufacturing gets cheaper and better year after year, definitely a fast moving industry !  My last and first project, 15 years ago, I got the PCB done by " PCBPool ", a Scottish company IIRC. Took 3 weeks to get the boards, and cost me an arm and a leg. Like 85 Euros (100+ bucks) for a Euro size (160x100mm) through-hole double sided PCB, drilled, no solder mask and and no silkscreen, or else it would have been more like 250 Euros... Stencil was available but cost a mega fortune. Of course I got only one single board, not 2 nor 3 never mind 5 of them.

Had I known they would route any shape for free, I would have saved a good amount of money : but too late I just ordered today ! :-(

Initially my board was 20x15mm, and I had made a "notch" on one edge, so that the board can clear the 3 wires as they come out of the cable strain relief piece. I thought pfff... gonna have to file that notch by hand for every single board.. that more work/time during assembly. So I tried to make the board more compact, so I can get rid of the notch by making the board smaller 20x11mm.... was quite proud of myself, managed to fit it all, got rid of the notch, yeahhhh...   A "panel" was made, so I can get V-scoring. 45 boards on a 100x100mm "panel". I ordered, price was dirt cheap, 2 USD + 1 USD for lead-free finish.. for 5 of them ! 3 bucks.... and only 2 buck for shipping to France, incredible.  Grand total with customs and taxes.. 7+ USD ! Truly unbelievable.

So I paid that. 30 minutes later I get an e-mail saying : HEY ! Your board as too freaking small, one of the dimensions is less than 15mm ! This will make V-scoring a pain for us ! So we request that you pay a 15 USD supplement ! IF you don't you lose oyur order and the money you have already paid ! ".

Cool.... 3 bucks now turned into 18.... 500% increase.. and I don't get to cancel my order or submit new Gerber files / design... no, you just have to pay whatever we say we want ! 


So ha dI known... I would have just submitted my first design, 20x15 with the notch, they would not have complained about the size, and the notch would have been routed, wouldn't even have to file it by hand !

Also, made a fake order this time submitting a single board rather a panel of 45. Turned out 3 times cheaper this way ! 

Lesson(s) learned....

Luckily in the grand scheme of things even with the 15 USD supplement, the grand total is still only 20 Euros or so.. which is probably 5 times cheaper than what it would have cost me had I get the boards done by one of  western European PCB houses... so, still quite happy with JLCPCB none the less!