Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Definitely. Rig it up to a row of filters and make a scope audio spectrum analyser out of it. Oooo, ideas. I am in the process of building a Nixie spectrum analyser, but now you've gone and diverted me.

Something lile this?


https://www.nixiekits.eu/product.php?key=nixielyzer

[xrunner]

So, today the new TEAcquisition appeared.
Here's some more hints:

...

One day absent from TEA and five or more pages to read ...
So I'll be absent one more day, more pictures and disclosure of the unit then.

Hmmm. I see you blurred the model name on the left in one pic, but I think I see the floppy drive showing, and a color screen. A printer on the top. On the back a reference adjust and 10 MHz in/out. The plastic is yellowed. I'll give it my best shot this evening ... 

[xrunner]

Oh tricky one but I got it. I'm sending capt bullshot a PM with my guess, if anyone else wants to try. My guess is at UTC 2208 ...

[Cerebus]

You can't have a picnic on Stonehenge stones anymore (boo, hiss), but there are plenty of other rings.

You can at Avebury, which isn't far from Stonehenge, and if you don't want a picnic there's a decent pub right by, as in spitting distance, in Avebury village.

I once participated in a wedding held in the centre of the stones there. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure.

[McBryce]

Definitely. Rig it up to a row of filters and make a scope audio spectrum analyser out of it. Oooo, ideas. I am in the process of building a Nixie spectrum analyser, but now you've gone and diverted me.

Something lile this?


https://www.nixiekits.eu/product.php?key=nixielyzer

Yeah, but with a wooden base to match the clock (built a few years back) and with more channels, possibly 10.

McBryce.

[factory]

So, today the new TEAcquisition appeared.
Here's some more hints:

...

One day absent from TEA and five or more pages to read ...
So I'll be absent one more day, more pictures and disclosure of the unit then.

Hmmm. I see you blurred the model name on the left in one pic, but I think I see the floppy drive showing, and a color screen. A printer on the top. On the back a reference adjust and 10 MHz in/out. The plastic is yellowed. I'll give it my best shot this evening ... 

Think I've found it with a bit of web searching, a time interval analyzer TA520.

David

[bd139]

You can't have a picnic on Stonehenge stones anymore (boo, hiss), but there are plenty of other rings.

You can at Avebury, which isn't far from Stonehenge, and if you don't want a picnic there's a decent pub right by, as in spitting distance, in Avebury village.

I once participated in a wedding held in the centre of the stones there. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure.

Sounds like an interesting day out. Might have to do that one.

[mnementh]

I don't completely understand her fascination with British history.

We have some. 

A bit over two centuries doesn't count as history more 'recent recollections', and of course anything that happened more than 245 years ago in the US counts as "British history". 

But seriously, what anyone is taught or told in their own country as "history" looks rather different if compared to what is taught or told about the same events in other countries. One can get a very useful perspective on what might have really happened if you listen to accounts taken from a different viewpoint.

Case in point... our (particularly North Americans) casually dismissive attitude towards the history of the middle East. These people invented modern math; they had architecture when most of us were living in caves and painting ourselves in the blood of our victims.

And the arrogance of the suggestion that we are "going to bring them peace" by occupying their lands...  These people have been killing each other in horrifically brutal ways for nearly as long as there has been such a thing as written language.

250 years? Fuck; these people have family feuds older than that.

mnem
 

[xrunner]

Think I've found it with a bit of web searching, a time interval analyzer TA520.

David

Yep that's what I came up with after exhausting the first things I tried. I wasn't very familiar with Yokogawa test equipment but I am now. 

[Cerebus]

OK, some more on the saga of learning to solder 2.5 x 3.5 mm 0.5mm pitch parts at home.

As a reminder, this is the stupidly small package that I'm working with:



I have stock of three different solder pastes that I've tried out on the same part and board. The first is some old Sn63Pb36Ag2 with type 818 flux that I've had sitting in the fridge for a couple of years; I've lost its pedigree but it's a respectable brand that someone was selling on ebay in economical size syringes that they'd filled themselves with something that normally only comes in giant pots (Multicore, Kesler, something of that ilk). The second is a syringe of fresh Mechanic brand XGZ40 (a common cheap Chinese variety sourced via ebay). The last is a virgin syringe of Chipquik SMD291AX bought from RS. The latter two are straight 63/37 alloys. All are type 3 mesh.

The results:

Old Sn63Pb36Ag2	Mechanic	Chipquik
Worked fine, a tad drossy, best tack	OK, less tacky than the first	Least tacky

All those results are on boards with an ENiG finish. They all self-aligned equally well, any apparent differences are down to camera angle.

So, my conclusion? The best feel, the easiest to use was the old solder but the results are a bit drossy - it's too old. The Mechanic and Chipquik produced comparable results but the Mechanic was a little bit easier to print and slightly tackier. The mechanic is also about £5 a syringe and the Chipquik £15. So I'm going to stick with the Mechanic for the time being and keep my eyes open for some quality high tack paste with some silver content at a reasonable price. All were good enough to get the job done.

For the sake of experiment I also ordered some HASL(leaded) finish boards at the same time. All the advice I've ever received as "Use ENiG for QFN packages" so I wasn't too hopeful for the results. I was wrong, the HASL boards were as easy to place these tiny QFN packages on and get finished results as good as the ENiG boards. No pics because they're not really helpful, you can't distinguish the results from the ENiG board done with the same paste. Now, this is a one-off, but the takeaway is that fine pitch will work on HASL - your mileage may vary. Why this matters is that the ENiG finish option alone costs significantly more than the boards most of the time from people the likes of JLCPCB (£12.25 extra for ENiG on a £1.44 100x100mm board).

Final point. The HASL board I had shipped with plain airmail, the ENiG boards with DHL. The HASL boards only took 3 days more to reach me and the cost was a fraction of using DHL. I'm sticking with the jet snail mail in future unless it's a genuinely urgent job, three days less isn't worth the £10 it would cost on a 100x100mm board order.

For the record, JLCPCBs turnaround times, order to delivery to my door so far.

4 layer HASL board (jet snail), 17 days.
2 layer HASL board (jet snail), 10 days.
2 layer ENiG board (DHL), 7 days.

[tautech]

I believe you can rejuvenate paste some with IPA and a good mix up.

[Cerebus]

You can't have a picnic on Stonehenge stones anymore (boo, hiss), but there are plenty of other rings.

You can at Avebury, which isn't far from Stonehenge, and if you don't want a picnic there's a decent pub right by, as in spitting distance, in Avebury village.

I once participated in a wedding held in the centre of the stones there. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure.

Sounds like an interesting day out. Might have to do that one.

Do. There's a lot of good walking in the area, and lots of other bits of truly ancient Britain scattered about.

[Cerebus]

I believe you can rejuvenate paste some with IPA and a good mix up.

If it's not too old, yes. But finely divided metal is going to oxidise faster and eventually the solder powder accumulates enough oxides that it overwhelms the reducing power of the flux. It looks like my 'old' solder paste is on the cusp of that, the slightly drossy finish suggests that - it was bright when it was fresher. If you add more flux to overcome the oxidation you alter the overall makeup and don't get as much metal for the same amount of paste printed so that's not really an option.

[tggzzz]

You can't have a picnic on Stonehenge stones anymore (boo, hiss), but there are plenty of other rings.

You can at Avebury, which isn't far from Stonehenge, and if you don't want a picnic there's a decent pub right by, as in spitting distance, in Avebury village.

I once participated in a wedding held in the centre of the stones there. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure.

Sounds like an interesting day out. Might have to do that one.

Short stroll to Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow.

I rather like Stanton Drew Stone Circle and the area around it. Decent food pubs nearby too. https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevekeiretsu/34563294793/

[xrunner]

Has anyone been allowed to dig down and find out how much of those large stones are underground? Seems like they would have to have a pretty good length under there to keep them from falling over. 

[tautech]

I believe you can rejuvenate paste some with IPA and a good mix up.

If it's not too old, yes. But finely divided metal is going to oxidise faster and eventually the solder powder accumulates enough oxides that it overwhelms the reducing power of the flux. It looks like my 'old' solder paste is on the cusp of that, the slightly drossy finish suggests that - it was bright when it was fresher. If you add more flux to overcome the oxidation you alter the overall makeup and don't get as much metal for the same amount of paste printed so that's not really an option.

Still, adding some liquid flux might be worth a try depending on how much Scots blood runs in your veins.

A few years back a few of us Auckland EEVblog'ers got together for Christmas drinks and one of the chaps had scored a whole pallet of used Multicore P26 liquid flux and we each walked away with a # of 5l containers of the stuff and although very liquid it seems to work quite well despite it being formulated for spray use in production processes.

[tautech]

Hey Bean, how's the shoulder ?

Slightly nervous about getting the jab tomorrow................

[beanflying]

Nil Shoulder issues or injection soreness. Make sure you drop the arm to relax prior to the jab and hope they don't stand in the corner and throw the needle to hard . Felt a bit spinny in the head the day after and all back to 'normal' such as it is today 

[med6753]

I got the first Moderna shot last Monday and had no side effects other than slight sore spot in the arm which disappeared after 2 days. I'm already scheduled for the 2nd shot on the 30th. 

[med6753]

Here is a question for our American friends, I have been following the ongoing saga of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Miami and this chap here is a structural engineer and seems to have the best approach towards unravelling the cause of it bearing in mind the recent discussion here regarding the apparent poor response of the fire service as seen in many YT videos. Given the time of night that this shocking event happened, especially as the original alarm the Police responded to was a code 49, a fire alarm, why did it take the fire service so long to arrive, and given the type of building it was why did they not have any rescue capability or even a turntable ladder on the first call out. Then why did it take so long for the search and rescue teams to arrive, given that it was evident that there was people trapped in the still standing part of the building, screaming out for help?

I can't speak for Miami FD and their lousy response. That whole event was a total shit show and it's evident that some people should go to jail but I doubt it will happen. I can say that if that had happen in NYC the FDNY would have been on top of it immediately. Old tenement building collapses are not uncommon there and they have highly trained rescue squads.   

[tautech]

I got the first Moderna shot last Monday and had no side effects other than slight sore spot in the arm which disappeared after 2 days. I'm already scheduled for the 2nd shot on the 30th.

Pfizer here and just lately advisement for the 2nd is now 6 weeks, double what was advised just a week ago.
Apparently it gives better and longer resistance.

[mnementh]

What a difference a little compressed air and IPA make...

      

mnem
*toddles off to watch Twilight Zone widda boi*

Well fuck.

Now  what do I do with m'self...?

I spent the afternoon packing all the crap that the MacPro was buried behind so I could drag it out... set it up, and I was all ready to sit up til 2am doing updates, flashing the GPU, etc... and it just works. Here I sit, Mac-ing away, just like the day that old GPU died again some uhhh... 350-odd pages ago. 

   

Ordered these to power it; all of $15 via Prime Next-day. Plugged 'em in, and there it sits pretty as you please and barely warm; if anything, quieter than the original "cooked itself to death" GT-8800. Only difference is that without the Mac firmware on the GPU, I don't have the PBE so I can switch between boot drives. I can still very easily pop the side cover off, unplug one drive and plug another in. In aboot 20 seconds.

Fuggitt.

mnem
*toddles off to pack some batteries*

[beanflying]

Obscurity downunder eBay auction: #274904692689 My list is already to long .....

[mnementh]

Hoy fuck, mate... does that thing actually have inputs direct to the deflection plates on the back...?

mnem

[0culus]

Had a nice RIFA explosion tonight. I got an -hp- 11713A attenuator/switch driver. Noted that the rifa in the line filter looked a little dodgy, but what's living if you don't live dangerously? 

I tested everything out and the RIFA lasted about an hour before going up in smoke.   

What do you fine folks like to replace these with?