Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[cyclin_al]

Stupid RS, their manual for the Metrix is in the original French!   

Vince shrugs, lights Gauloise. "Pas de problème!" 

I don't smoke ! 

I can read French no problem.  The problem is that very few people speak French any more these days in France. There is no sense of spelling or grammar or verb tenses or punctuation or what words actually mean or anything any more, and they sprinkle their sentences with random misused English words here and there to look smart, or so they all think. It's a complete shit show. It's getting harder and harder to understand what people write or say, and it's getting harder and harder for people to understand what I write or say, because they have 10 words of vocabulary and just can't read. It's hard to express nuance with 10 words...

They speak neither decent French nor English, just a really bad mix of the two ! 

Rant over, sorry....

Uh oh, I better go hide in the corner.  You probably will not like me. 

I used to be able to speak decent English.  Both of my parents were school teachers, after all.  Being at home was kind of like being at school ... 

Then I moved to where I live now.  My English has been polluted by these foreign French words from another nation (according to the provincial politics).
I have attempted to learn the national language French, errr I mean Canadian French, nope make that Quebecois, not really; more like Gatineauois, more specifically valley Gatineauois ....
To further drive home the point, spell check suggests that I replace "Gatineauois" with "Nauseating" ... 
I freely admit that my local version of French is very much polluted by local English slang ...

The only pure French thing here is the dog ... genetics purely from les montagnes de Pyrenees! 
At least I no not smoke either 

[cyclin_al]

Stupid RS, their manual for the Metrix is in the original French!   

Vince shrugs, lights Gauloise. "Pas de problème!" 

I don't smoke ! 

I can read French no problem.  The problem is that very few people speak French any more these days in France. There is no sense of spelling or grammar or verb tenses or punctuation or what words actually mean or anything any more, and they sprinkle their sentences with random misused English words here and there to look smart, or so they all think. It's a complete shit show. It's getting harder and harder to understand what people write or say, and it's getting harder and harder for people to understand what I write or say, because they have 10 words of vocabulary and just can't read. It's hard to express nuance with 10 words...

They speak neither decent French nor English, just a really bad mix of the two ! 

Rant over, sorry....

Wait a minute.  I thought there was this French government committee with the sole purpose of keeping the French language "pure" and free of those dreaded English words. You mean to tell me that the great unwashed masses told them to stick it where the sun don't shine? 

At least the committee there is based in academia.

The Quebec version of the committee is based on political postings... 

[xrunner]

More checkout of the 436A. I measured the REF output of the 436A on my 437B power meter and it checked OK (0.002 dBm). The 436A drive for the sensor checked out OK (negative going square wave w/respect to GND) @ 220 Hz) so I connected it to the 436A and it worked as it should. I measured it's own REF and it was very close to correct so I just tweaked the front panel CAL ADJ pot and it's now as it should be (0.00 dBm). I also verified the CAL FACTOR % settings worked by rotating the dial and observing the reading going up incrementally with each dial setting.

Hey wolfy007 (or anyone) ...

Dont forget about the RIFA cap heat shrunk behind the switch...

Yea there are RIFA caps back there. There are two X2 class 0.1 uF jobs. They are not shown on the schematic, but of course will be replaced. The only document I can find with schematics is the same document you find everywhere. As a matter of fact, the power supply board A9 shown doesn't match the board in my unit either. The schematic shows a dual regulator for the +-15V rails, my board has separate regulators. My board also does not have any fuses on the board. Do you know where any other schematics exist?

[cyclin_al]

Gonna be interesting weather wise in these parts today and tomorrow. Current track will put me on the western edge of it. Cubdriver (Pat) will take a near direct hit. 

https://www.weather.gov/media/aly/AutoBriefing/ALYBriefing.pdf

Yeah, definitely not liking that predicted storm track - has me pretty much boresited.  Forecast I just looked at calls for sustained 30-40 mph winds with gusts north of 60 (100 kph-ish). This is not good considering that the trees are fully leafed out again, as they were last summer when the last big storm ripped through.   

-Pat

Yea, not looking too good for you. Batten down the hatches and keep flashlight handy. Be safe buddy. 

Sorry about that.  It is aiming for me but falling short of target.

My last family camping trip was 2 years ago.  The same thing happened where the main storm track fell just south of us.
Due to past experiences, I have acquired top quality tents and shelters and was the envy of the campground. 

Getting ready for the latest family camping trip.  Yep, our reservations put us where the main storm track is expected to fall just south of us....   

[Specmaster]

Do you have storm shelters, like basements that can securely buttoned down or are we not talking twister type storms here?

[tggzzz]

My English has been polluted by these foreign French words

So has mine, e.g. pork, beef, restaurant etc.

Supposedly only 70% of English words have a teutonic origin.

[med6753]

Do you have storm shelters, like basements that can securely buttoned down or are we not talking twister type storms here?

Yes, most residences in my area have cellars which are good for the very rare instance of a tornado. But are NOT good for something like a hurricane with massive rainfalls amounts because of possible flooding.

"Tornado Alley" in the Mid-west separate storm shelters are very common but are meant for short term shelter. Once the tornado has gone past you come out to find your house gone. Hurricanes can last for hours.

[Vince]

Uh oh, I better go hide in the corner.  You probably will not like me. 

I used to be able to speak decent English. 

I do like you ! 

I was talking about French people, not people in French speaking countries. The latter kind speak a much better French than French people, because the French went downhill only recently, like 15 years ago when mobile phones/text messages, and cheap broadband internet became wide spread and forums became plentiful.

French speaking countries are geographically and culturally independent from France. Their "version" of the French language is therefore not suffering from the problems we are having here. All theses countries are like little safes / museums that protect the language. May they continue to do so for a long time.
In particular all the French speaking countries in Africa speak excellent French, even the lowest layers of the population. They run circles around 98% of French people. Shame on us.

I dread to think that foreigners come to France thinking they will learn French properly, makes me shiver. Whatever French tehy acquire and bring back to their home land, is bound to be junk. It's sad but if someone said to me "I want to live in France to learn the language !! "I would tell him he is a fool and he better go live in Quebec or some ex African colony. Basically anywhere but France ! Sad but true.

Internet suck this evening ! Down to a crawl, can't load AVG's pictures of his Metrix , can't load BD' GGTA hipster video, can't load any thing you people posted that not just text.  I Need BD here to come fix the fucking French internet...

Hoping it will be back to normal when I get up tomorrow. 

[factory]

A non-TEA post, I didn't post any pictures of the PC rebuild the other day, as I forgot to refit the front USB panel. 

Before with original motherboard, CPU from 2008, PSU, GPU & RAM were a bit newer.
Before I started I backed up the bookmarks from Firefox to a HTML file, after hearing of problems with Firefox on here after a rebuild.


Everything was stripped out apart from the PSU, then I found I couldn't fit the new motherboard, apparently I didn't notice it was slightly wider when I ordered it & it required more fixings. 
Also I found the machine had been assembled by a gorilla, they had forced a metric screw into one spacer and one had been split from a screw that was to long. 



The next day I visited a local PC shop and they had a couple of spacers that enabled me to start the build. The only parts from I refitted were the DVD drive, GPU and the USB3 part of the IcyBox piece of crap (all other parts of that had failed other the years).



Most software has been reinstalled and the files from the old HDD now transferred to the new one.
Firefox Sync refused to take my password and lost everything when it was reset, just as well I backed-up what I needed. 
The only thing that needs to be completed is an IDE cable for the Superdrive floppy drive replacement, need to locate one in the shed, currently inaccessible due to TEA in the way.

David

[factory]

Back to TEA, one of the parcels waiting for opening.


Inside was the badly listed Tek scope, as mentioned the foam in the storage bag had gone crumbly and coated everything in foam bits.


As expected this scope is the standard THS710 version, most on here seem to be A versions, the probes are P6113B, they look in barely used condition, along with the multimeter probes.


After cleaning the foam crap out over the bin, I checked the battery pack, it measured in at 4.6V.
But once reinstalled it failed to power the scope without the wall-wart connected, I expect it's past it's best and will need replacing. No issues apart from a memory error, the display is in excellent condition and judging by the number of power cycles this scope hasn't seen a lot of use.



As the main bench is still covered in hp 180 series, it will be a while before I do a teardown to evaluate the condition of smd caps that maybe inside.

David

[Cerebus]

I dread to think that foreigners come to France thinking they will learn French properly, makes me shiver. Whatever French tehy acquire and bring back to their home land, is bound to be junk. It's sad but if someone said to me "I want to live in France to learn the language !! "I would tell him he is a fool and he better go live in Quebec or some ex African colony. Basically anywhere but France ! Sad but true.

I take it that you've never listened to any Quebecois. I can understand actual French people. I can understand African francophones. I can't make out but a few words spoken by French Canadians. When AvE talks to his daughter I get "unintelligible ma petite jolie. unintelligible unintelligible unintelligible unintelligible".

[factory]

Internet suck this evening ! Down to a crawl, can't load AVG's pictures of his Metrix , can't load BD' GGTA hipster video, can't load any thing you people posted that not just text.  I Need BD here to come fix the fucking French internet...

Hoping it will be back to normal when I get up tomorrow. 

The problem has spread, I can't view some forum pictures either now, edit: it just seems to this page (3940) that I'm having problems with.

David

[mnementh]

I dread to think that foreigners come to France thinking they will learn French properly, makes me shiver. Whatever French tehy acquire and bring back to their home land, is bound to be junk. It's sad but if someone said to me "I want to live in France to learn the language !! "I would tell him he is a fool and he better go live in Quebec or some ex African colony. Basically anywhere but France ! Sad but true.

I take it that you've never listened to any Quebecois. I can understand actual French people. I can understand African francophones. I can't make out but a few words spoken by French Canadians. When AvE talks to his daughter I get "unintelligible ma petite jolie. unintelligible unintelligible unintelligible unintelligible".

Ehhh... the only part that matters is "Keep yer dick in a vise..." 

mnem
*toddles off to look for some dinner*

[Vince]

I take it that you've never listened to any Quebecois. I can understand actual French people. I can understand African francophones. I can't make out but a few words spoken by French Canadians. When AvE talks to his daughter I get "unintelligible ma petite jolie. unintelligible unintelligible unintelligible unintelligible".

That's just an accent problem, just like we discussed within the UK. To alleviate the accent barrier, one needs to judge his abilities at French in writing !

I dare to believe I my written English is about decent, given all the crap I see coming out of native English speakers in Youtube comment sections or random forums. Yet if we were to try and have face to face discussion you and me, it would probably be painful for you to bear with my disgusting pronunciation, and painful for me not to understand half of what you say, well maybe I don't know, because maybe you have an accent I have never heard before or you speak too fast or you don't articulate well enough or god knows what might get in the way of a successful communication...

To this day I still don't understand when I watch American TV series, why there are some people / characters I understand perfectly the first time, without any effort, and others I only get 50% of the words and can't fill the blanks to make up a plausible story. I spent only 3 years in the UK so I guess if I moved up there for 10 more years I might eventually get better... but I will never know.

One of the reasons I subscribed to EEVBlog YT channel in 2013 IIRC, was become somehow, even though he was Australian, I could understand him perfectly well without any effort, even though he speaks non stop, like he doesn't need to breathe.
Shahriar / Signal Path is the same. speaks at the speed of light, yet somehow it comes easy to me. Others, I don't get - at - all... 


But as for Quebec people yes I have listened to them...there are a few artists from Quebec who sing in France. Like Robert Charlebois or Céline Dion or Garou or "Coeur de Pirate" . They speak perfect French, no trouble at all understanding them 

As for AVE I don't know who he is so can't say ! Will have a look on YT...

[0culus]

So, package company rant incoming. As mentioned on discord, the UPS wankers left a sticker on my door for a signature required package I was home for all freaking day. Never even rang the doorbell. So I drive down to the main UPS customer center (colocated with the hub where the trucks are dispatched out of) which is supposed to be open for package pickups on Saturday. Closed. 

[Vince]

Inside was the badly listed Tek scope

David

Wow looks brand new and good specs, I am jaleous ! I quite like the industrial design of this series of Tek Scopes. They do pop up over here every now and then, but always at insane prices, like 500/1000 Euros regardless of condition and issues. So I kinda had to give up on them sadly 

[Zucca]

Wow looks brand new and good specs, I am jaleous ! I quite like the industrial design of this series of Tek Scopes. They do pop up over here every now and then, but always at insane prices, like 500/1000 Euros regardless of condition and issues. So I kinda had to give up on them sadly 

I have two of them, once both are repaired I will sell you one.

[Vince]

Wow looks brand new and good specs, I am jaleous ! I quite like the industrial design of this series of Tek Scopes. They do pop up over here every now and then, but always at insane prices, like 500/1000 Euros regardless of condition and issues. So I kinda had to give up on them sadly 

I have two of them, once both are repaired I will sell you one.

Two of the same specs, in good nick too ?!

Well that's interesting, thanks ! 

That said now that you moved to the US, shipping and taxes and customs will be a killer I fear 

Keep in touch anyway please ! 

[Zucca]

BTW, pfSense and Charter Modem are talking.
Now for the first time in my life I have to deal with IPv6 and pfSense. Oh joy.

Masochist Karma.

[Zucca]

That said now that you moved to the US, shipping and taxes and customs will be a killer I fear 

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tek-ths720a-portable-scope-teardowndiscussion/

No worries Vince my tentacles are very long and I can ship from Germany.

Mafioso and masochist.

[Vince]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tek-ths720a-portable-scope-teardowndiscussion/

Oh wow, you started working on them 7 years ago ?! 15 pages worth of work ?! 
Now that's perseverance and dedication !!   
Luckily looks like many people like these scopes and are helping you out, hope you manage to fix your beasties, good luck ! 

No worries Vince my tentacles are very long and I can ship from Germany.

Oh great !! 

[Zucca]

Oh wow, you started working on them 7 years ago ?! 15 pages worth of work ?! 

If only I could finish the project I had started I would be now rich and famous.

[0culus]

In happier news, bd139 will be happy to see that there is life in my surplus store -hp- Harrison power supply. I determined the cap that had been lifted is actually fine, so I resoldered it. Brought it up on a variac supply just in case....but it's fine. Just a case of a mildly wild meter movement, solved by a quick deoxit of the meter mode switch.

[Vince]

Oh wow, you started working on them 7 years ago ?! 15 pages worth of work ?! 

If only I could finish the project I had started I would be now rich and famous.

Now that sounds mysterious ! You have me curious... might go and read the 15 pages of your thread on this.... first few lines indicate a problem with the charger which appears to embed some smarts, that are giving you trouble...

[Vince]

In happier news, bd139 will be happy to see that there is life in my surplus store -hp- Harrison power supply. I determined the cap that had been lifted is actually fine, so I resoldered it. Brought it up on a variac supply just in case....but it's fine. Just a case of a mildly wild meter movement, solved by a quick deoxit of the meter mode switch.

Lovely bits of kits, but I just can't help but focus on the 575 in the background... I think I need treatment...