Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

48kg of Frequency Generating Door Stop. Pickup only in Sydney if you are prepared to risk a fine for breaching stay at home orders.... eBay auction: #154569906786

Go on @Brumby you know you NEED it and its only $2/kg 

Thats some pretty good British engineering, looks more like a massive communications receiver.

[Vince]

Got the urge to build another pulser. This time I laid it out so that I would be able to connect a charge line easily. This effort incorporates all the tricks I have learned in my journey of building Jim Williams' circuit.

[..]

Measurement set up today is my Type 547 'scope with the Type 1S1 sampling plug-in set to 200 mV/cm and 0.5 ns/cm. The output is going through a GR-874 20 dB (10X) pad.

Wow the pulse looks beautiful on that blue CRT 
However I don't think this is a conclusive experience.. you don't know if your design efforts have been rewarded do you ? The sampling head seems to be too slow, it's probably hiding the true performance of your pulser  ?

I mean I just checked the rise time for the 1S1. Manual says " 350ps OR BETTER ". Eye-balling it on your photograph, it looks like 300ps or a little less, consistent with the rise time of the 1S1 then. So... that means your pulser is much faster than that, but we don't know how much... we need a faster sampling head or multi-Ghz scope ! 

[Specmaster]

Quick update on the 2 Avo 8 Mk V meters I picked up this morning. The leads are in a pretty bad way, hopefully a good clean will improve them, but the probes have had it. One meter was in a near perfect leather case, the meter had a rattle when I got it home, opened it up and a little screw and washer fell out. Tested the DC volts and the meter reads a little low, further investigation reveals some damage to plastic movement protection shell, and it seems some plastic bits may be caught up in the meter movement as the meter is not linear. Need to investigate that more.

The other meter had a sticker on the side stating it had been serviced by Megger, who own Avo and that one checks out perfectly OK and still had the factory applied seal intact following its service. That does not mean to say it's free from faults, when they reassembled the meter, failed to correctly align the meter assembly with its plinth  and as a result has obscured the top of dial markings as you can see in the photo, 4,5 and 6, so this needs a little fettling. Otherwise, both meters are in good condition cosmetically and all the switches and cut-outs function correctly, and battery compartments are in original condition.

More info and photos as I get to grips with them.

Looking forward to seeing how they look with the lamps fitted!

 

Not ever on my watch will that happen, so don't hold your breath.

[factory]

Prices on Bonanza are even nuttier than on ebay...

This is pretty funky though: https://www.bonanza.com/listings/Data-Check-Monitor-Oscilloscope-1200B/850205708

If I ran a prop hire company I'd buy that in a blink!

I've sent "Look Mum, no computer!" a heads-up email about this piece.   

Can't help thinking LMNC would want an entire rack filled with them and they have loads for sale, you'll bankrupt him. 

I've seen parts from those oscilloscopes on the Sphere pages, they are trying to give away the empty carcasses and flogging the picture bulbs separately.

David

[factory]

Quick update on the 2 Avo 8 Mk V meters I picked up this morning. The leads are in a pretty bad way, hopefully a good clean will improve them, but the probes have had it. One meter was in a near perfect leather case, the meter had a rattle when I got it home, opened it up and a little screw and washer fell out. Tested the DC volts and the meter reads a little low, further investigation reveals some damage to plastic movement protection shell, and it seems some plastic bits may be caught up in the meter movement as the meter is not linear. Need to investigate that more.

The other meter had a sticker on the side stating it had been serviced by Megger, who own Avo and that one checks out perfectly OK and still had the factory applied seal intact following its service. That does not mean to say it's free from faults, when they reassembled the meter, failed to correctly align the meter assembly with its plinth  and as a result has obscured the top of dial markings as you can see in the photo, 4,5 and 6, so this needs a little fettling. Otherwise, both meters are in good condition cosmetically and all the switches and cut-outs function correctly, and battery compartments are in original condition.

More info and photos as I get to grips with them.

Looking forward to seeing how they look with the lamps fitted!

 

Not ever on my watch will that happen, so don't hold your breath.

Went to the Astle Park steam rally yesterday for a few hours, as you would expect mostly autojumble, modern junk & car-boot-sale crap for sale on the stalls (only the one trader that brings ex-mil tools & parts), but these lamp feet were spotted on one of the junk stalls, middle one looks a bit expired.  I thought about buying the left one, but as I was parked in the far corner of the second parking field I decided not to (was already carrying a bag full of bits from the ex-mil stall).



And yes card/electronic payments are still not available in remote countryside locations here, as noted by all the messages on the food vans about them not working.

David

[BU508A]

Today arrival: Martindale FL30
Now I can do my own Photonicinduction channel on YT. 



It works!

[Shiv]

(Attachment Link) Hi all, see what i just get:


It´s in pretty good shape, I think is complete:

It have bad power cord and probably a broken valve, but I think I have spares.

Do you like it?

It's alive!
After deep clean of inner parts, new cables and new EB41, it works flawlessly.

Now I'm doubting if I shall repair dents and scratches outside and repaint or left it with original paint that lasted since 1959.

Pic is 100kohm measurement.

[bd139]

Today arrival: Martindale FL30
Now I can do my own Photonicinduction channel on YT. 



It works!

Very nice  . I’m still trying to find an excuse to buy one but it turns out I actually have nothing to test it on in the house. I did think about walking around in public zapping things with it but I may get arrested 

[Specmaster]

Got the urge to build another pulser. This time I laid it out so that I would be able to connect a charge line easily. This effort incorporates all the tricks I have learned in my journey of building Jim Williams' circuit.

[..]

Measurement set up today is my Type 547 'scope with the Type 1S1 sampling plug-in set to 200 mV/cm and 0.5 ns/cm. The output is going through a GR-874 20 dB (10X) pad.

Wow the pulse looks beautiful on that blue CRT 
However I don't think this is a conclusive experience.. you don't know if your design efforts have been rewarded do you ? The sampling head seems to be too slow, it's probably hiding the true performance of your pulser  ?

I mean I just checked the rise time for the 1S1. Manual says " 350ps OR BETTER ". Eye-balling it on your photograph, it looks like 300ps or a little less, consistent with the rise time of the 1S1 then. So... that means your pulser is much faster than that, but we don't know how much... we need a faster sampling head or multi-Ghz scope ! 

That lovely blue display reminds me of the earlier VW Passats that used that nice blue for the lighting of the dash instruments, nowadays, they are terribly boring with white lighting, but still a zillion miles away from crappy lighting on the instruments used years ago of small tungsten bulbs arranged around the dials emitting their light via small windows in the side of the meters.

[tggzzz]

Now I'm doubting if I shall repair dents and scratches outside and repaint or left it with original paint that lasted since 1959.

Don't disturb the "patina"

[bd139]

Got the urge to build another pulser. This time I laid it out so that I would be able to connect a charge line easily. This effort incorporates all the tricks I have learned in my journey of building Jim Williams' circuit.

[..]

Measurement set up today is my Type 547 'scope with the Type 1S1 sampling plug-in set to 200 mV/cm and 0.5 ns/cm. The output is going through a GR-874 20 dB (10X) pad.

Wow the pulse looks beautiful on that blue CRT 
However I don't think this is a conclusive experience.. you don't know if your design efforts have been rewarded do you ? The sampling head seems to be too slow, it's probably hiding the true performance of your pulser  ?

I mean I just checked the rise time for the 1S1. Manual says " 350ps OR BETTER ". Eye-balling it on your photograph, it looks like 300ps or a little less, consistent with the rise time of the 1S1 then. So... that means your pulser is much faster than that, but we don't know how much... we need a faster sampling head or multi-Ghz scope ! 

That lovely blue display reminds me of the earlier VW Passats that used that nice blue for the lighting of the dash instruments, nowadays, they are terribly boring with white lighting, but still a zillion miles away from crappy lighting on the instruments used years ago of small tungsten bulbs arranged around the dials emitting their light via small windows in the side of the meters.

I can’t stand blue dash lighting. It makes your eyes go funny in the dark. Mine is about right as it emits a colour I can only describe as “pissy orange”.

Although rather stupidly I bought myself some new sunglasses the other day which are polarised and of course now I can’t see the LCD based dash unless I cock my head sideways like a demented dog. 

[Zucca]

The switch? For trivial needs I'd put a fanless Cisco 2960 with PoE there. Not cheap (and hard to find fanless and used) but can be made to do what you want, within the limitations of the hardware. 

That is, as long as you're only switching in it. If you're routing in that box, you need more oomph. I'd split the functions anyway. For router, I'd get a Mini-PC, like the small Lenovos BD is using, BSD and a firewall / NAT config, perhaps one of the *sense dists, or hand-crafted config.  Or an OpenWRT capable piece of iron.

I have a pfSense which I 100% love when it works and I 100% hate when it does not. Solving problems there is always interesting but time does not grow on trees.
I see DuckDuck your points anyway no cloud managed for me, in case I will buy a CRS Mikrotik, not CSS. It is even the same HW.

Cisco fanless sound interesting, need to do my homeworks first.

Thanks for all suggestions and discussion.

[Cerebus]

The PNG with alpha channel that you uploaded in a later post seems to have been altered. The alpha channel was gone.

Yup, the image handler here on SMF works hard to mangle anything uploaded, that includes destroying alpha channels and gif animations.

[BU508A]

Anybody here from Germany with a much faster scope than my 100MHz RTB2004 which likes to test my crude Jim Williams pulse gen.?   

[Cerebus]

That’s too old school. They’ve upped their game now

Arrrgh, my eyes!

[BU508A]

The PNG with alpha channel that you uploaded in a later post seems to have been altered. The alpha channel was gone.

Yup, the image handler here on SMF works hard to mangle anything uploaded, that includes destroying alpha channels and gif animations.

I've uploaded a .zip file. I think, this should fix it. Thanks for the explanation.

[tggzzz]

Wow the pulse looks beautiful on that blue CRT 

Just like a Tek 485's blue CRT

But in a still picture of an asynchronously sampling scope, you can't see the mesmeric effect of the twinkling display.

[McBryce]

Quick update on the 2 Avo 8 Mk V meters I picked up this morning. The leads are in a pretty bad way, hopefully a good clean will improve them, but the probes have had it. One meter was in a near perfect leather case, the meter had a rattle when I got it home, opened it up and a little screw and washer fell out. Tested the DC volts and the meter reads a little low, further investigation reveals some damage to plastic movement protection shell, and it seems some plastic bits may be caught up in the meter movement as the meter is not linear. Need to investigate that more.

The other meter had a sticker on the side stating it had been serviced by Megger, who own Avo and that one checks out perfectly OK and still had the factory applied seal intact following its service. That does not mean to say it's free from faults, when they reassembled the meter, failed to correctly align the meter assembly with its plinth  and as a result has obscured the top of dial markings as you can see in the photo, 4,5 and 6, so this needs a little fettling. Otherwise, both meters are in good condition cosmetically and all the switches and cut-outs function correctly, and battery compartments are in original condition.

More info and photos as I get to grips with them.

Looking forward to seeing how they look with the lamps fitted!

 

Not ever on my watch will that happen, so don't hold your breath.

Went to the Astle Park steam rally yesterday for a few hours, as you would expect mostly autojumble, modern junk & car-boot-sale crap for sale on the stalls (only the one trader that brings ex-mil tools & parts), but these lamp feet were spotted on one of the junk stalls, middle one looks a bit expired.  I thought about buying the left one, but as I was parked in the far corner of the second parking field I decided not to (was already carrying a bag full of bits from the ex-mil stall).



And yes card/electronic payments are still not available in remote countryside locations here, as noted by all the messages on the food vans about them not working.

David

Did you ask how much he was asking for the highly illegal poaching traps?

McBryce.

[Shiv]

I can go up to 16ps in the work lab.

But it's in Spain.

[bd139]

Ok need some help with an ethical conundrum here.

The tinySA guy said on the ebay message that I could keep the fake one. In the jiffy bag for the replacement he has a hand written note asking for me to return the fake one.

I am loathed to return it because (a) it's at my cost and (b) it'll probably get sold on as a good one to someone else less diligent and (c) he's said I can keep it already.

Thoughts?

Edit: incidentally it is broken when testing it with the not broken one. The ref output is approx -5dBm below expected level.

[BU508A]

Ok need some help with an ethical conundrum here.

The tinySA guy said on the ebay message that I could keep the fake one. In the jiffy bag for the replacement he has a hand written note asking for me to return the fake one.

I am loathed to return it because (a) it's at my cost and (b) it'll probably get sold on as a good one to someone else less diligent and (c) he's said I can keep it already.

Thoughts?

Edit: incidentally it is broken when testing it with the not broken one. The ref output is approx -5dBm below expected level.

I'd probably write the seller through ebay, that you are confused, because of (c) and the note you've found.
I'd also ask him for paying the return costs, if he wants it back. It wasn't your fault, that you got a non-working fake unit.

Use ebay messaging just in case you need proof about the communication.

[mansaxel]

Ok need some help with an ethical conundrum here.

The tinySA guy said on the ebay message that I could keep the fake one. In the jiffy bag for the replacement he has a hand written note asking for me to return the fake one.

I am loathed to return it because (a) it's at my cost and (b) it'll probably get sold on as a good one to someone else less diligent and (c) he's said I can keep it already.

Thoughts?

Edit: incidentally it is broken when testing it with the not broken one. The ref output is approx -5dBm below expected level.

Ask him which is the correct position, while pointing out that your verification might have compromised the fake.

[Zucca]

Unexpected question from you.
A good Ferengi would have already bumped in Ebay for parts.

[Specmaster]

That lovely blue display reminds me of the earlier VW Passats that used that nice blue for the lighting of the dash instruments, nowadays, they are terribly boring with white lighting, but still a zillion miles away from crappy lighting on the instruments used years ago of small tungsten bulbs arranged around the dials emitting their light via small windows in the side of the meters.

I can’t stand blue dash lighting. It makes your eyes go funny in the dark. Mine is about right as it emits a colour I can only describe as “pissy orange”.

Although rather stupidly I bought myself some new sunglasses the other day which are polarised and of course now I can’t see the LCD based dash unless I cock my head sideways like a demented dog. 

Yeah I know, I have the same problem with my Sat Nav and also mobile phone screen, they look totally blank unless I look above or below the glasses and then of course I'm almost blind as I need glasses distance glasses for driving and reading glasses for close up work 

[Robert763]

<BIG SNIP>

I ended up buying the AST-branded ones from an online retailer that shares its name with a large river in South America. They seem to be quite decent. They use 18AWG silly-cone wires and, as Marco Reps would say, "proper" banana plugs. I don't understand why they went for safety plugs since there will never be more than about 1V between them (I measured 0.910 volts while measuring a 20kR).  Maybe because a foolish person might measure the resistance of a charged 600V capacitor?

The whole premse with "safety" shroulded 4mm plugs is not just what they are intended to be used for but how they may be misused. This can be deliberate or the resut of a mistake or lack of knowledge. Senario is this: Worker A connects those kelvin clips to mains to measure with a Fluke. Worker B "borrows" the Fluke and leaves connected leads lying around. Worker C (maybe a cleaner or similar non technical person) moves the leads and gets a shock. In a single worker or hobby environment this is less likely but not impossible. As a teenager I got a very bad shock stripping a mains lead because my brother plugged it in while I was looking for a pair of cutters (he says it was a mistake, I'm not so sure). 
In theory for work apllications in the UK, apart from leads that have a fully insulated / isolated device attached to one end e.g. power input leads, all 4mm plugs should be shrouded. The only exception to this is if it can be shown that all power sources in the area of use are less than about 50V (extra low voltage). This has actually been the law in the UK since the mid 90's but it is commonly ignored. 
When this law came out in the UK, it  was made clear that compliance was required "regardless of cost or inconvenience". I was responsible for safety for my employer at the time. The company had literally thousands of 4mm plugs and sockets on test harnessess including some on 200V supplies. My instruction that they all had to be replaced was not well received. The safety role went to a senior manager allon with a letter explainin my take on the subject.. I happened to visit them last year and despite two changes of premises thay still have unshrouded 4mm plugs   
Shrouded plugs are even more important in europe where an unshrouded plug fits into the mains outlets.